The Wary Eye
by CrackinAndProudOfIt
Summary: ...sees life differently: the fall of the house of Fëanor as told from the perspective of Maedhros' psychotic wife.
1. The Unknown Monster

The Unknown Monster

_"How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily- how calmly I can tell you the whole story."_

_-Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart"_

First Age 503, the citadel at Amon Ereb

* * *

><p>It is chasing me. I wish more than anything that I might know what it is, but I cannot even stop running for but the moment it will take to turn about and look upon that which is my pursuer. I do not know when it took up my trail, nor wherefore, but I know it is after me for a reason. And I know I can only run for so long.<p>

The path of my flight, I realize, is taking me through the streets of Tirion. These wide avenues should be crowded and bustling, full of noise and life, were it daytime, but now they are empty. The only sounds are those of my bare feet lightly slapping the marble road and the heavy breathing of the creature behind me.

It is night in Aman, and some voice within me remarks how that explains the eerie tranquility of the busy city, but I know with some unusual intuition that the creature and I are the only living souls in Tirion, and all of Valinor.

I do not have time to stop and contemplate why; I must keep on running. If I stop, I will die. How do I know this? I wish I knew. It is so dark around me, especially now that I note our hasty passing beneath the shadows of the business district's loftiest structures. There is light ahead, though, which I have not before noticed: pale moonlight bouncing argent off the white streets and towers of the elven city- _but why does Isil shine here?_

One particular shaft cuts into a narrow gap of darkness between two closely-built rooftops, illuminating pallid under the mansions' eaves an at first not particularly alarming sight: two _néri_ lying on the ground.

As the beast and I draw near, I recognize them. How could I not? They are my brothers-in-law, two of them at any rate, Makalaurë and Curufinwë; I would know them anywhere! Within the walls of this very city, I watched them grow up, and, now, as I run toward them and away from this predator, I watch them sleeping out of doors, as it seems.

Beholding this strange spectacle, I make as to call out to them; my lips form the words, "Curvo, Makalaurë, what are you doing out here?" But no sound escapes me. I clear my throat and open my mouth to attempt it again, but any words that would have come out fall dead on my tongue as I closer approach them, for I realize that they are not sleeping.

Complexions vaguely sallow, eyes glassy, dried blood dripping from their mouths: I see that slumber would be the happier fate for them. They are dead.

Suddenly, for a split second, a black blur crosses my line of sight, nearly causing me to stumble. It quickly passes in front of me, though; I follow it with my eyes and see it land beside the corpses of my brothers-in-law.

I see now clearly what it is: a massive raven, the likes of which I have never seen in waking life. It folds its great wings- they must span five feet- and the moonlight reflects off of its ebony feathers. Silently, it hops nigh to Curufin, bends down its black head to his, and pecks. It bites out one chunk of flesh, then another and another, devouring his face.

I want to scream, but I cannot. I want to run to the bird and shoo it away from its profane banquet, but I must continue to flee. The most I can do is avert my eyes from the harrowing scene and fix them ahead. I have to focus on saving myself; I have no time to waste on rotting bodies or carrion-fowl. If I stop, I die.

Already the creature's steady breathing can be heard closer behind me after the slight slowing of my pace. I pick up my feet and run more quickly through the lifeless streets, ever ahead to some unknown destination whose anthem is safety and banner is peace. But It is gaining on me, and though I move faster now, I can tell I am at last beginning to tire.

At some point, I realize, I am going to have to turn around and face it. I cannot run forever, and if the beast does not kill me, physical exhaustion surely will. Which fate is worse? I wonder.

Weaving down white lanes and byways, in, out, and around, just when I begin to doubt that the city's roads will ever have an end, we turn a corner, and there I behold a welcome sight: the city's gates. I breathe a quiet prayer of thanks to whichever Vala whose domain is freedom and open doors. I am hoping I can lose the creature outside of the city.

I dash through the gates, vaguely noting the abnormality of their being open at night, and find myself running along the white sand of a vacant beach. I remember no beach so near to Tirion, but my race is far too urgent for a respite of contemplation.

I run and run but find myself involuntarily slowing once more. My chest is heaving; my torso burns from the prolonged exertion of its muscles; I am gasping for breath and parched. The unstable sand is far more difficult to move quickly upon than the pavement of the city streets. I know I cannot keep this up for much longer, but, nonetheless, I try.

My vision dims and grows hazy for a moment, the black sky and white sand blurring together, fusing to create a massive grey cloud before my eyes, and I fall into the soft embrace of the beach. I cannot get up- my body is far too exhausted for that- but I turn my head to glance behind me. My pursuer is upon me before I can analyze its appearance.

It flips me over so that I am face-up, staring into the hooded blackness that might serve for its face. It pins me to the ground, crouched over me with its arms extended and the ends of them resting on the sand above my shoulders. I am trapped.

The creature is robed all in black, with a black hood completely overshadowing its face and shrouding its head. What is it going to do to me? My heart is racing, and every fiber of instinct I possess screams to me, "Run! Fight! Do something!" My muscles refuse, though, leaving me paralyzed below this Thing, awaiting death.

And then its hood slides back. I gasp, awestruck and bewildered. Terror greater than any felt yet before on this strange night seizes my heart, for I look upon my husband.

His copper hair is loose, hanging in his face, and perspiration lines his brow. His grey eyes are vividly alert, darting to and fro as if unable to focus on any one part of me, restless.

"Rányë," he says, his voice earnest but somehow sad, "why did you run from me?"

I open my mouth to answer him, but then remember I cannot speak. How am I to explain it to him? I try to mouth a response, without success.

Suddenly, his visage contorts into a horrid and twisted image of fury, hate, and disgust. What did I do wrong? From somewhere within his cloak, he draws a naked dagger. Before I realize what has happened, he has driven it into my chest. I look down and see my blood spreading quickly to darken the grey cloth of my garment. The last thing I feel is searing pain, and then I open my eyes.

Awakened into the warm air of a spring night, I find that I am still panting. I simply lie there on the bed for a few minutes, inhaling and exhaling, calming myself with the tranquil sounds of nighttime. Somewhere outside, I can hear a cricket chirping, and to my left is Maitimo's sleeping form; both the rhythm of his breathing and of the insect's song relax me. I try to lie still, soaking in the precious and peaceful aura of reality.

But to my right, moonlight pours steadily onto the stone bedroom-floor between open white drapes. I do not like them, those drapes; I realize that I never have. That must explain why I am unable to sleep well here at Ereb.

How could I, with the eyes of those terrors upon me? Like great robed arms they are, ghostly in hue, poised as if ready to move. Suddenly, I feel the tension in the room; everything is still, perfectly still, waiting for those limbs to make their motion, embracing the world or pushing it away, cradling one or strangling one. And I realize I, too, am waiting.

Though I hate them, I fix my eyes upon those pale arms, hardly daring to breathe for the anticipation. When will they move? They cannot, will not, stay static forever, and a morbid curiosity within me craves the sight of their inevitable movement.

But they stay still. Hours and hours it seems that I bore my eyes into them, as the tension builds to a tangible density. Terrified am I to avert my gaze, for I know that the moment I do, they will move, and I want no secrets kept from me.

But stationary they remain, the stillness, the constant watching and waiting growing like to drive me mad. Almost I imagine that the right one is ascending, but I blink, and realize that it is only a trick of my blurring sight. I cannot keep awake much longer, but neither can I sleep with this dreadful anticipation.

I wish they would move already. Do they seek to mock me, taunting me with the frightening notion that they should move without my knowing it? They do, they do! And I am allowing them to beat me at this demented game.

I smirk, almost I want to remark to them of my cleverness, but I do not want to wake Maitimo as I rise from the bed to claim the victory in this contest of wills. Triumphantly, I walk to the window, and stretching up, up, up, as I high as I may, take in hand the curtain-rod and begin to remove the arms from their position of boasting. When I have done so, setting the rod on the floor, for I am not tall enough to replace it, I look at the curtains lying there beside it.

Much less of a menace they are, more like pieces of cloth than horrible arms, here upon the floor. I tread upon them, smiling as if to gloat over my victory. I have won, I decide, and slip back into bed.

**End A/N: **

**My chapter titles are not my own, they come from the bridge/rap of/in my favourite song, Michael Jackson's "Threatened." This project has been in the works almost two years, and I'm nervous about posting it, to be honest. Open feedback of any sort is welcome. And an enormous thank-you to my betas Virodeil and Sauron Gorthaur!**

**-Crackers**


	2. Is About to Embark

Is About to Embark

_"In a battle of wits, it is poor sport to fight an unarmed man."_

_-Mark Twain_

He has never listened to me, not really, truly, seriously, not as if regarding me as an equal: What made me think that today would be any different? It is months after the night of horrible dreams and threatening curtains, and I find myself in the bedroom with my husband as Anor's light wanes. Her last golden rays shoot clearly onto the floor through the bare window. Oh, yes, those curtains will never more be hung, having been reduced to cinders in a personal celebration the following day. The failing light falls onto my husband's face as I try once more to convince him of my proposal for fulfilling his oath.

"Maitimo, I beg you! Please let me do this for you, my lord. If you cannot do it yourself, I can, and _I will_. I want to. For you." My voice is shaking now. _Why does it betray me so? _I will not weep, I will not! I bite my lip in an attempt to keep composure, and meet my husband's gaze in silence. I loathe the emotion I see there: pity. Why does he pity me? I am the one trying to help _him_.

He sighs quietly, sadly, with an air of defeated resignation that it frightens me to see, and then bends down to look me directly in the face. He puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "Thank you, Rányë. I understand that-" Here he pauses, and the search for words that I see taking place is rare for him. He sighs, and tries, again. "Rányë, I know that your plan makes sense to you, and I believe I understand the goal behind it- but I fear you are not thinking it through."

I want to hit him. He speaks condescendingly, as if to a foolish and errant child who cannot comprehend the adult matters onto which it has encroached. He claims to understand, but he does not. If he did, he would concede, and see that my offer will provide the best and easiest means of satisfying the Oath.

"Maitimo, my plan does not just 'make sense to me'!" I respond, my voice both trembling and growing heated at once. I do not want it to; I came to him humbly, simply presenting my offer and hoping he would see its logic. I was not looking for an argument. In fact, there are few things I hate more than disagreeing with him; this time, however, I am willing to argue. Why? Because this time I know that what I am proposing is in his best interest.

"It is logical from both a military and a moral standpoint," I continue emphatically. "What is it about striking to reclaim the Jewel when it is merely guarded by two mortals in a little cottage that you seem to think is so terrible? Were it held fast in the deeps of Menegroth, we would eventually be forced to make some sort of assault upon Doriath, which you know would lead to many being killed. I can accomplish the same with the deaths of only two."

I move out from his grasp and begin pacing back and forth across the bedroom floor, my feet soundless on the stone. My hand moves to a knife lying on the bedside table, which I pick up and proceed to finger, prepared to resume my little oration.

"Put that down, Rányë." Maitimo's words are quick, his tone severe. _Why? _I pay him no heed. "Only the two of us are in the room," he insists. "I command you, put the weapon down."

Does he not trust me with it? _Absurd. _The notion that he might suspect me of some impulsive act is enough to tempt me to throw the blade at him, even as he apparently fears I may. But the words are an order; I obey.

"Maitimo, it is fool-proof," I say, continuing my pacing as I toss the knife down. It lands on the tabletop with a conspicuous clatter. "I would arrive by night, open up their cottage door, creep into their room, and slit their throats in their sleep before they even knew what was happening. I grab the Silmaril, leave the bodies, and journey back to Ereb with it, the Oath accomplished." I return to look him in the eyes once more. "What say you to that?"

Maitimo sighs again, and then, the unexpected happens: A wry smile forms on his features, and he lets out a brief and grim laugh. I still want to hit him. "Fool-proof, Rányë? How would you expect to find this cottage?" He pauses but for a moment. "I have heard it lies on an island adjacent a waterfall; did you think to cross it by swimming? That would hardly be possible in so swift a current."

My eyes dart to the floor, and I make a quick study of a crack I have never before noticed as dividing it. _How did such a rift come to be formed? _Whence it came matters little; it means the citadel is unsteady. Already I fear the tremors of its collapse can be felt beneath my feet.

Maitimo appears to take my distracted silence as a cue to continue, and I, with effort, divert my eyes and attention from the crisis at hand. "And what of the Laiquendi?" he inquires. "They love that pair as their own, and the Silmaril's light would more than reveal you to them as a thief and ripe target for their arrows.

"What of Dior? Do you honestly think that he would simply abide the deaths of his parents and the apparent theft of 'their' jewel? No, he would in his turn lead an attack against us, still resulting in the same bloodshed you seem _so very keen_ to prevent."

He is no longer condescending, but nearly mocking in his tone now; he elaborates still, now daring to question me. "Think, Rányë; nothing is ever so simple as it seems. Have you taken thought for those perils?" He begins to speak again, but I refuse to let the inquiry linger rhetorical.

After all, there is much still to explain: fresh memories of a visit to the house of the living dead during our time living in Ossiriand- I will be able to find my way thither once more; my grief for the Oath's effects, and most importantly, my revelation just last night that I am to be the one that solves this predicament once and for all.

I know not from whom it derived, only that, as I lay sleepless in the second watch, probing its shadows for the ceiling above the bed, it penetrated my thoughts as lightning may cleave a tree. It was no notion of my own, the simple words, _"You are the one," _carrying with them endless implications and telling me I know the way amid that pathless land, recalling to mind memories long removed of days dwelling in the Land of Seven Rivers. I would tell Maitimo all of this and more, but the words will not form, save one.

"Intuition," I say simply, shrugging my shoulders, not meeting his eyes, as my mind scrambles for further articulation.

"You think to use _intuition_ as navigator, ford, shield?" replies Maitimo, his voice strangely melancholy, if I am not deceived. "Listen to yourself, Rányë; you are hardly rational-"

"Trust me!" I exclaim, heedless of whatever point he is trying to make. "Merely trust me. I can and will do this, whether you think me capable of it or not, if only you grant me permission to."

"Trust you?" he says softly. "That, I cannot do any more than allow you to bring yourself to harm, lost in the wilderness. You will die, should you attempt this; would you have me held responsible for your fate?"

I will die? _No, no, he is only trying to frighten you. _And in doing so he has insulted me, as well. "I am responsible for my own fate, lord," I reply, unable to keep haughtiness out of my tone. "Let me go! What have you to lose?"

Maitimo looks at me long and hard and silently. A shadow of what might be sadness comes to rest on his visage. When he replies, his tone is quiet and full of pity- full of pity, but no longer condescending. "Do you not understand?" he says.

Here I stand, presenting a perfectly reasonable plan whose enactment will cost him nothing- that he refuses to accept; yet he tells me _I _do not understand?

"Some things are too beautiful, too holy, for us to interrupt. Right now, as Lúthien wears that Jewel, Dor Firn-i-Guinar is the most tranquil, lovely, sacred place in the Circles of Eä. The two most beautiful things in creation have come together. Who are we to destroy that?"

What is he talking about? He sounds like Tyelkormo: enchanted by this Sindarin princess-turned-_adaneth _and her famed beauty. Tyelkormo, however, had at least actually seen her! Another dart of offense smites my heart, but it dissolves as soon as it enters. I know him far better than this, but I realize that did he believe me hurt by the statement, the more easily will I persuade him.

"Am I that unsatisfactory to you?" I say, my voice catching. Instead of hiding my emotions, I now try to amplify them; tears will be a great asset to my fresh endeavour. "That you lust after a woman you have never even laid eyes on?" I find a choked sob somewhere back in my throat and hope to the Valar (though they typically are of little aid) that it will further my cause.

"Rányë," he responds, sounding frustrated as opposed to the defensive I desire, "if you believe such a thing, I pity you, and the same if this is some final attempt at persuading me your folly is worth attempting."

"I have no desire for your pity," I snap on instinct, but, taking a deep breath, continue using the meek tone in which I first presented my proposal, "I need only your faith; I know where to go and how to find my way there; I have been there before." With the words, sudden images flash before my mind's eye: of emerald waters swirling around a grassy isle beneath endless trees, of a rushing waterfall with starlight caught in its foaming flow. _You know that land._

Maitimo only shakes his head. "But faith is the very thing that you even now confirm I cannot give you. I am sorry." Even had a rapping not now sounded at the bedroom door, I know I would have no fitting reply to give. "Come in," my husband calls, shooting me a glance that, though brief, warns that the debate has ended.

The door creaks open to reveal a smirking Carnistir take a step forward with crossed arms. He wears a cryptic facial expression that almost manages to imply he heard something of our speech. "A messenger from the boundaries has just arrived, Nelyo," he says severely, acknowledging neither me nor anything he may have overheard. "I know you will find his tidings of import..."

Maitimo's reply is impatient: "And what exactly are those tidings?"

"Beren and Lúthien are dead," states my brother-in-law simply, quickly adding, "And I know nothing more than that; speak to the messenger, if you would know more. He is downstairs."

_Dead? _My and my husband's eyes meet but momentarily; a look of amusement passes between us, and I smile and shake my head. We have just argued a moot and nonexistent point for over an hour- but such is the tale of our lives. I wish only that I had known of the debated plan sooner; _did my anonymous dispatcher?-_ for though the thieves have perished, the stolen property remains in wrongful hands.

For the Silmaril's sake, I suppose, Maitimo vehemently replies, "Then by all means let us return downstairs," and is soon out the door, striding in haste down the hall at his brother's side.

But I do not follow, instead content to remain behind, reveling in living memories of starlit waters under lush and infinite trees, a paradise I will never see.


	3. From a Far Corner

From a Far Corner

_"The journey is part of the experience- an expression of the seriousness of one's intent. One doesn't take the A-train to Mecca." -Anthony Bourdain_

It is day twenty-three of our frigid, grueling march to Doriath, and I am exhausted. I do not know when last I was able to feel my feet, and even my _mithril _corslet grows burdensome as we plod along. Maitimo is an idiot.

_"We do not have enough horses to mount all of our troops, so we would be travelling at an uneven rate. Besides, cavalry would be of little use in the woods," _he had said when posed the question of whether or not to ride. Right enough, I suppose, infuriatingly, though he clearly did not well perceive the longevity of our future journey.

It has been raining for the past week or so, and the saturated ground is difficult to tread upon. Our trip is supposed to end soon, or so I have prayed, but now, as I put one cold foot in front of the other, I cannot help but wonder if this hellish road will continue forever. I stare down at my boots, finding them now completely coated in mud, and try to shield my face from the belligerent wind. I am quietly thankful that I braided my long hair into a solid- though at the moment damp and quite filthy- plait; otherwise, I have a feeling that, thanks to the kindly elements, it would be tangled beyond hope of salvaging.

Typically, such a notion would not have entered my mind, but, compliments again of the weather, I have been feeling particularly feminine- and very much a spoiled princess- of late. Who could blame me, though, after nearly a month of walking, fully exposed all the time to the brutality of winter?

Ai, and I _am _growing soft. It is not as if this is the first time I have marched long in miserable conditions, though those were dark as opposed to wet, and with less purpose. Less purpose, perhaps, but less walking- at least for a while- as well; as it turns out, stolen ships make for happier feet.

But that was ages ago, when I had much with which to fill my young mind- much that made the plodding along less dull. There is only one reason that I am thus reflecting now: extended hikes, physically grueling though they are, little tax the psyche, leaving ample time for such useless mental feats as this. For some strange cause, that description of my ruminations brings levity to my thoughts, and I find myself smirking down at my boots.

I glance up from them to watch the bleak and cloudy sky. It is finally beginning to darken on day twenty-three, though there has been no sign of sunset; however, there has not been a sign even of the sun the further north we go.

I turn to my husband, whose eyes are fixed ahead on the grey horizon, appearing as though he is attempting to descry things far off. "Maitimo?" I ask, "How much farther?"

My words seem to startle him out of his reverie, but he answers attentively enough. "Today, or until... the journey ends?" He finishes quietly, and with his tone comes the implication that, despite all his brothers have said concerning the necessity of this attack, he has not been convinced of its justice.

"Anticipating the destination, are we?" Curvo cuts in from somewhere close behind me. I see a wry smile play upon his sharp features as he speeds up his gait to walk between Maitimo and me.

"Hardly," is Maitimo's dry response; Curvo turns to me, cocking an eyebrow as if to pose the same inquiry.

"Not as much as you are, I am sure," I reply.

Curvo chuckles. "Only Tyelkormo can rival me in that arena."

"Rival?" Tyelkormo's voice can be heard before he falls into step between Curvo and Maitimo. "My dear Curufinwë, my anticipation surpasses yours as the Silmaril we go to re-possess surpasses the halls in which it is held." He grins at Curvo, and the two share the laughter of twice-bound brothers whose oaths of bloodshed pain them not at all. Maitimo does not look amused, but he clearly has no desire to argue the point any longer.

But Makalaurë, from somewhere off to Maitimo's right where he has seemingly been absorbed- much like the rest of us- in his own thoughts, speaks up gravely. "It is still hardly a laughing matter- and we have agreed to cease killing the moment the Jewel is located..." What began as a confident assertion trails off to be left almost as a question, baiting the air.

"Of course, of course," Curvo assures him, but a smirk- as it seldom does not- lingers in his tone and expression. "We are lords of the Noldor- too honourable to kill without need."

"But it is when the definition of 'need' varies that we find we have run into trouble," retorts Makalaurë.

"It would have no cause to vary," counters Carnistir, falling in step with what I suppose is growing into a belt of Fëanorians here in the van of the army, "if we were all of one mind."

"You, Carnistir?" laughs Pityo, emerging with Telvo behind his elder brother. "For once against dissension?"

"Because I am in the right, naturally," is the smug reply. "If all agreed with me then there would be no reason for argument."

"I, for one, do agree!" puts in Tyelkormo, and in the growing dusk I see him place a hand on his younger brother's shoulder.

"And I thank you," returns Moryo with a rare laugh.

_"Do you agree?"_ The voice startles me at first; so intent on the others' speech was I that my own thoughts were temporarily neglected. But how to answer this question, I know not.

"There is no need," says Tyelkormo.

_"To answer?" _I almost begin to respond, but he continues speaking; I remain in silence.

"After all, it was my cause long before you were persuaded to join it- you all were." I gather that this last phrase is directed toward Maitimo and Makalaurë, ever the two most hesitant to violence, yet as their harsher brothers equally deadly if provoked.

"And I do not forget it." Maitimo finally acknowledges the conversation at hand, a wry smile in his voice. "None faulted you, Turco, for your ideas; it was only the execution that was up for debate."

"As it should not have been." Curvo's bemused comment is made just loud enough so that all hear it but none address it, but he soon raises his voice- if slightly- to elaborate. "The Oath leaves no room to be questioned." As is so often the case, he has the last word, leaving me to examine my own opinions.

The attack, I know, is necessary, and I suppose for that reason I am unopposed to it. I came for the fulfillment of what Maitimo tells me is duty only self-imposed, and at the moment, I am apathetic toward it- my feet hurt far too terribly to contemplate philosophy, anyhow.

I decide to make a second attempt at questioning distance. "So, how much longer are we marching for _today_?"

"At most another hour," Maitimo replies flatly.

Any response I would have been able to conjure up is drowned out by the anguished cries of my numb fingers and wind-burnt face. (A hood, as a note, is perfectly useless in windy weather that finds it amusing to blow any covering off of one's head, no matter how many times she replaces it.)

~oOo~

Roughly an hour later, I find myself sitting in the tent alone, mindlessly nibbling away at what remains of a wafer of _coimas_. I have not the slightest idea where my husband is, and I am far too weary to care. If he is at some sort of impromptu family council, I really ought to make the effort to be offended at receiving no word at all of it, and even less, of its location. I am quite glad not to be there, though: I doubt that I would even be able to hold myself upright and keep from freezing during it. _Keep from freezing..._

I remove only my belt, from which my sword hangs, my dirty boots, and my cloak, and proceed to make myself a pathetic little pallet using my cloak and blankets as I have the past twenty-two nights for Maitimo and myself. I lay down inside of it, prepared to drift off to the somewhat warm and refreshing realm of Irmo.

A sharp pain in my back, however, causes me to jolt back up with a curse. As only the luck of a Fëanorian soldier would have it, I have chosen to lay myself directly on top of a rock beneath the tent.

I mutter all manner of less-than-appreciative names for rocks, the ground, and Aulë their creator as I aggravatedly shift the blankets as far away from the rock as possible. Stricken suddenly by some impulse which fears that Maitimo will be offended should he return and see I have only made a bed for one, I doggedly pull out more of the fraying wool blankets and form a like pallet for him. _He ought to appreciate this._

I lay down on the blankets on the right and attempt to become as warm and comfortable as I can on the firm and frigid ground. At least there are no rocks over here.

~oOo~

An unknown amount of time later, I slowly open my eyes and see, in the glare of the lamp I had (rather foolishly) left lit, Maitimo entering the tent, stooped as he must be to do so. He makes no move toward the other pallet, instead looking down at me expectantly.

Even thus bleary-eyed from sleep, I can tell he looks awful. Throughout the duration of this journey, he has been somewhat haggard- have not we all?- but now, with his bloodshot eyes and furrowed brow, it is made clearer than ever that this journey is taxing him beyond simply the physical. I cannot help but pity him; he is too moral for his own good.

"Come, Rányë, it's time we begin another day," he says, and I realize that it must be morning- or, rather, that ungodly hour at which we break camp and commence the daily march.

"You have not slept," I answer him flatly. It is neither an accusation, request, nor inquiry: merely a statement of fact, and he takes it as such.

"I know," he replies, sticking out his hand to me.

I toss aside the covers and take it, allowing him to pull me to my socked feet. For once, I can feel them- due to the sharp pain running through the sole of my left one. _Good morning, accursed rock._

**A/N: Another big thank you to my beta Sauron Gorthaur, without whom this story would be rather disastrous. :)**


	4. Under the Dark

Under the Dark

_"'It will drive us mad,' 'It will kill us outright,' we say; and then it happens, and we find ourselves neither mad nor dead, still held to the task."_

_-C.S. Lewis, Perelandra_

The woods are thick around me, oppressive, even; my husband's army is surrounded by- or do we surround?- on all sides dark beeches, countless, endless, leafless. A single snowflake writhes its way down through the boughs of the mighty tree I stand beneath and lands squarely upon my right eyelashes even as I blink in futile hopes of keeping it out.

It does not sting, not really; rather as I reach up to brush aside this frigid intruder it is the tarnished gauntlet borne upon my hand that pains me, scratching- ever so slightly- my wind-burnt flesh.

The eye wells up with tears, and I curse them, blinking back the warm droplets before they can slide down my cheek. I have learned long ago that to even bear the semblance of weeping makes one more likely to do so, to expose what you already know within you to be true: that you are breaking.

But I am not breaking, not snapping, not weeping, not cracking; bending, perhaps, but not tonight.

Isil's light, filtering down through the forest's naked limbs, is but dim: that of a new moon, and one obscured by the heavy January clouds that forebode only snow. It illuminates little, leaving the lamps and torches sparsely distributed among the troops to prove far brighter.

This half-light shows to me my husband's face- jaw clenched, inner turmoil apparent in his weary eyes. I ought to say something- I know it- but what words are there for such a time as now?

This is it- the last halt before we reach the vicinity of Menegroth and make our invasion, our battle, spill the blood the Oath has craved since the night it was first sworn. The Oath: so many would scoff at it, name its keepers, nay, _victims_, materialists, and their adherents violent madmen (_Am I not?_).

But as long as it is satisfied, the means by which we do so matter little. How can they tell me, these faint voices I hear, that this is wrong? I only want to see our family liberated.

_Silence! _Silence, you abominable tongues! Do you not remember? Can you not recall the night on which we became afflicted with our current trial, bound by its hideous, heavy, chafing shackle?

_I was terrified, but in my defense, was not every soul in darkened Aman much the same? I stood marveling at the streets of Tirion, the beloved city of all of our birth, the city which I had not entered in years. It had always seemed a world away from Formenos, and, for all intents and purposes, it was; but to realize that all of that time the city I yearned for had been within but a few hours' ride was a strange blow. _

_Fëanáro was no longer permitted here, that I knew, but did the banishment also include those who had supposedly gone with him by choice? But no one in all that immense, shuffling crowd I found myself in the middle of seemed ready to condemn me, my husband, his brothers, or even Fëanáro himself. _

_With a glance around the throng, and up at my father-in-law, who stood at the king's elevated podium in the royal courts upon Túna's very summit, I turned to Maitimo and whispered, "What exactly is he about to do?"_

_"_My _father?" Maitimo returned wryly. "Anything."_

_It was a providential thing that Fëanáro began speaking just then, for there was no fitting response to be given: the statement was terribly true. _

_It would later be written that my father-in-law's words were that night filled with the potency of wine, and that every one of us became besotted with them; such is a feasible excuse for our later deeds, though it seems to place the blame (not wholly unfairly) squarely on the shoulders of the crown prince. _

_What effect they had on me is difficult to say; all I know is that I was persuaded in what felt like an appeal to my intellect- a far cry from the drugging incidence that we later embraced. All he said seemed simply logical: Indeed, what good had the Valar ever done us; why should we not return to the lands our fathers abandoned and claim the life we fully deserve?_

_It was not ideas of great realms or power that were appetizing to me, as I know it was for many others, nor was it the promise of a war of revenge upon Melkor. It was the idea of adventure- plain, simple, and piercing as a draught of icy water. I wanted to go places of which I could not even dream- walk across wide lands beneath a clear, starry sky, sail an ocean not tamed by the cozening of the Powers, ride and settle freely in a land empty for the taking, simply sit beside a river and watch it flow all of its own accord, step outside the comforts of home, and though it might take a little courage: really live. _

_At times during the oration, particularly times when I felt myself most affected by Fëanáro's words, I would glance up at Maitimo's face from my position clutching his arm, and look for some sign of agreement with my own emotions. But all throughout, an unsettling expression of impatience, even aggravation, continued to abide upon his visage, as if he felt this whole affair was nothing but a waste of his precious time. But try as I might to regard it, I found myself only further and further coerced to take the adventure in Fëanáro's outstretched hand._

_At last, the topic of my father-in-law's words morphed into the reclaiming of the Jewels he cared so much for. _"But when we have conquered and have regained the Silmarils, then we alone shall be lords of the unsullied light, and masters of the bliss and beauty of Arda,"_ were the very words upon which my husband leaned down to me and murmured, "I might have known they were at the root of all of this."_

_But before I had time to question his words, before I could try to tell him otherwise, before I was even able to begin wondering what he meant, he was gone from my side and standing at his father's right hand, sword drawn. _

_Blood. They would say it looked like blood already: the light of the myriad torches upon the naked steel of eight Fëanorian-made swords. What the reflection looked like, I do not know, and whether or not that statement is mere poetical exaggeration, I do not care. It was the words that mattered, words grave and spoken clearly on impulse, words that doomed and damned, words that bound and branded._

"Be he foe or friend, foul or clean, brood of Morgoth or bright Vala, Elda or Maia, or Aftercomer, neither law nor love nor league of swords, dread nor danger, not doom itself, shall defend from Fëanáro and Fëanáro's kin whosoever hideth, or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, finding keepeth, or afar casteth a Silmaril. This we swear all. Death we will deal him ere day's ending, woe unto world's end. Our words hear thou, Eru Ilúvatar; to the Everlasting Darkness doom us if our deed faileth. On the Holy Mountain hear in witness and our vow remember, Manwë and Varda."

_To say a thrill of fear or foreknowledge tingled down my spine or blanched my skin would be a lie from the pits of Angband (a place whose existence we were all unaware of). Hearing those words, my reaction was quite the contrary: a swell of pride and a confident smile in the direction of the oath-takers. _

_For on that night, all knew themselves to be Noldor: young and invincible, indomitable in combat, strong as the very metal of their blades, capable of everything, prepared for anything. There was no doubt in my mind as to the ease with which the Silmarils would be regained, and even that little phrase "Everlasting Darkness" meant nothing to me at the time. The only type of that I could see was the deep shadow lurking outside the mass of torches. _

_Those clean, clean swords were sheathed with a ringing that echoed off of every wall of every tower. The sound signaled the start of a new epoch, one in which we ruled ourselves and the Valar would answer to the might of the Noldor for a timely change. It silenced the crowd but briefly and called the rest of the family to hand. _

_But no softness of Arafinwë, no heated words of contention from Nolofinwë and Turukáno, could dissuade Fëanáro, their people, or even much of their own family from the journey at hand. _"Nay! Let us be gone!"

_The Oath prevailed, setting a permanent precedent for itself that would never be broken. Though it seemed to have crossed no one's mind, our house was bound to the journey before even embarking upon it. _"Let us be gone!"

_Some of us were gone already._

"I wish I knew." Maitimo's voice draws me out of the past in answer to a question whose content I have regrettably missed, though I see that he is turned toward Makalaurë, implying that whatever his missing piece of information may be, it will not be easily found.

The silence that follows, though brief, is poignant and defined. Tyelkormo shatters it with the question the seven clearly must answer, a question that Maitimo's earlier reply could easily have belonged to. "What are we waiting for?" That clear, strong voice cuts the subversive impatience in the winter air like a knife may a throat.

And then the blood will spill, as warm and dark as it should be; it will cover your hands, clinging to your skin, but keeping you- for the moment at least- from frostbite. It is not such a terrible feeling, but it is one I have not known in centuries: the hot blood of another upon my own frigid flesh. It has been even longer since that blood was elven.

"Nothing," replies Curvo from his constant position at Tyelkormo's side, "save Russandol's command." He holds a torch, but I can tell that more than just its reflection causes the glint in his steely eyes.

A sigh, faint and fleeting, escapes my husband's lips as he meets Curvo's gaze, then locks eyes with each of his brothers as they gather, involuntarily, it seems, into a circle here at the front of the massive following they have somehow procured. I stand on the outside, caught between the two groups, and a voice, high-pitched and clear, tells me that I have no place in either: It speaks the truth. Why have I come?

I had every excuse, no, every _reason_, to remain behind at Ereb. I had Maitimo's request, even his command, to do so; I had Makalaure's impassioned assertion that to go of my own opting was nothing shy of insanity- my husband for some reason laughed at that.

Carnistir had proceeded to point out that I ("the woman") was clearly willing to go in Makalaurë's place if the singer was hesitant ("too sane or too frightened") to go to battle himself, and that had ended that. However, Makalaurë's reasoning now seems perfectly logical as I stand on the brink of what may very well be my death.

_Nothing could possibly terrify me more than that thought,_

What did I think to gain by making this long march from home, only to slay Sindar and assuredly be slain in turn at the point of some Sindarin arrow? I had managed to convince myself that anything- _anything- _would be worse than separation from him, even that I could play a part in fixing him- rather, everything _for_ him, I mean, of course.

But how could I have forgotten every sleepless night since I first saw that our kind may die? How often I have tossed and turned, fearing to shut my eyes in terror that I shall never open them again, yet dreading the waking night in which I will look my death in the eyes, giving it the pleasure of gloating over the horror written on my face before it at last devours me. _I will die; I will die._

Tears, genuine tears, begin to fill my eyes; my hands are trembling. I cease the quivering of the right one by clutching convulsively the hilt of my sword. I run a finger up, down, and between its jewels, tracing each one and the engravings around it as I picture them in my mind's eye. First the ruby, then the amethyst, then the onyx, each is surrounded by an intricate patter of vines overlaying the steel; beautiful but impractical, all are now wrapped in a sturdy layer of leather more suitable for gripping.

Calmer, I return my presence of mind to my husband, seeing that the brothers-in-law have dispersed to their own troops and captains to finalize organization and give last commands. The battle plan is one of search parties: smaller groups of no larger than one hundred soldiers dispersing throughout the Thousand Caves to kill until they find the Silmaril, with the exception of Ambarussa and their troops. The twins and their men are to guard the outside of Menegroth, making certain that no Sindar enter to aid their royals- and that no royals escape to save their jewel.

"Before long every elf in Beleriand may be wishing we had simply assassinated your resurrected mortals, Rányë," says Maitimo wryly, turning to me; I smirk. "All for a jewel," he murmurs, as though he refuses to believe that something so simple, so beautiful, so innocent, will damn him.

"All for your soul," I amend, hiding behind my back my trembling hands.


	5. A Nightmare, That's the Case

A Nightmare, That's the Case

_"A great point was to set each lunatic to guard the actions of all the others. To repose confidence in the understanding or discretion of a madman is to gain him body and soul."_

_-Edgar Allan Poe, "The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether"_

"And you know which party you are to go with?" The subject change is more than due from Maitimo.

"Aeranor, Seregil, everyone with them, correct?" I glance behind me and pick out the faces of the soldiers I have just named.

"Yes," Maitimo replies, "listen well to Aeranor, and remember that you are to keep with that company at all times."

It is a strange command: why would I want to depart from my assigned group? "Of course, lord," I answer him to both orders, even as a new concern forms in my mind. "But-" I begin hopefully, and am permitted to continue by his weary nod. "But where will I find you, if things should go ill?"

I do not know why the first expression to cross his visage is one of frustration, and it is- equally bizarrely- followed by a sigh. He might be starting to respond, but the return of Tyelkormo, swiftly followed by Makalaurë, Carnistir, and Curvo, interrupts him. "Is all in order?" he inquires of the hunter.

Tyelkormo smiles; almost wicked the expressions appears in the flickering torchlight. "We are copacetic and ready for battle," he responds lightly.

Toward the back of the army, the rustle can be heard of Ambarussa and their troops breaking away from those of us set to perform the invasion itself. Their following, though never large, has been blended with the people of Carnistir since the three brothers took up their abode at Ereb during the Bragollach, and thus has grown into a fair number, one that will be dispatched to Menegroth's exterior as around a third of the total troops.

Soon, the company has moved off, the crunch of their footsteps on the leafy forest floor, and with it most of the firelight- one needs it more out of doors than in- fading into the darkness between the beeches. There is nothing left to do, no more procrastinating; something within me warns that the doors of death are now swung open wide.

A harsh gust of wind sighs among the trees, ruffling a few loose wisps of hair that cling to my face, rattling bare, brown, branches, one against the other, and extinguishing the flames of all but a few of our torches. It is just as well; even the quenching of the flames had been written into the master-plan of the attack, though it is not to happen until we reach Menegroth.

Seemingly taking the breeze as a signal, at once we resume the march, embarking finally upon this last leg. I shiver. The snowfall seems to have picked up, and while still far from being a steady descent, more tiny flakes fall sporadically down upon the trees of Neldoreth. Whatever horrible doom may await me within the Thousand Caves' subterranean halls, I cannot help but be glad that at least it will be warmer within their sheltering passages than out here in the brutish weather.

Putting one foot in front of the other with the discipline accompanies someone knowing that the only way back is forward, I walk, eyes ahead and mind diverted from fear- albeit with some challenge- by the thought of air at our destination dispossessed of this chill.

It cannot be more than half an hour before I find my wish granted. We halt once more in sight of a great ravine, its jagged banks spanned by a slender bridge of stone leading to a massive set of doors hewn in the side of a rocky hill. The knoll is sparsely crowned with trees and brush, brambles and patches of grass yellowed by the season's change. The sight before me is not one of a pathetic and dreary tunnel that lets out into a single chamber far underground, but of an impenetrable fortress, a veritable mountain, of which even our ability to enter, even less to conquer, is to my mind terribly doubtful.

I, however, appear to be the only one concerned by the moonlit vision of this Sindarin citadel; as planned, the light of each remaining torch is smothered at once and sputters quickly out. Surely such an immense crowd as this has been spotted by now, and the cloak of shadow sought to be created is useless, but I suppose that in the darkness Fëanorian targets are less easy to be marked by bowmen.

I move at last from Maitimo's side, notifying him that I go to take my position with but a gentle touch to the shoulder and a weak smile. Despite its mingling together in this gargantuan mass, I have noticed that the army and its divisions have managed to maintain a great deal of organization even over the long march, but I am still relieved that the only soldiers in my company whose names I know are easily found.

I make a conscious effort to straighten my fingers whilst- I hope- not appearing to wring my hands, and as I join flaxen-haired Aeranor, I wonder how keen he would be upon taking charge of the company- now or when I am slain, I cannot decide.

Clearing my throat, I make to quietly give final instructions to whoever my soldiers may be, but Aeranor- he must have heard me thinking- does the job for me. "According to the messengers there are four tunnels after the entrance; we take the farthest left, two more lefts, then scour whatever remains."

The smaller parties appear to have separated themselves one from another, divided up by leader, as the march resumes. The pace quickens as first the brothers' parties file onto the bridge, followed by only one group between Makalaurë's and my own.

From somewhere above, we are met already by a salvo of arrows, black as the night sky, but sharper and more dangerous than any pelting precipitation that could fall from it. To my right, a man gasps, stumbles, then disappears, plummeting into the rushing river at the bottom of the abyss on either side of us.

As one unit, every troop among us begins to run, charging forward in a mad dash for the stone gates which now stand ajar, apparently opened by defenders that were slain before I even caught sight of them. The darts continue to fall whistling from above and occasionally find their place in a soldier who is then cast aside into the chasm below; the bridge will be useless if cluttered with corpses.

My eyes are torn between the doors and the arrows, unable to decide which better deserves their attention, but they are gratefully lifted when the dart comes whining down for me. This is the end; this is the end. My heart pounds, and in one moment, a flash of instinctual motion, I dodge out of its path and behind a man I do not know. He, gaze forward, obligatorily fills my vacant position.

The arrow catches him mid-step, embedded now in a tragic chink in his glimmering corslet. I exhale, a deep-drawn sigh of relief, and a grin paints itself- stupidly, I am sure- onto my lips.

That could have been me; that should have been me; that would have been me. I am alive; that soldier- may Námo keep him- of course, is not, but what does it matter? His carelessness, manifested in the step he took without even glancing to the sky, was clearly no asset to this army, anyway.

Even as I find myself beneath the archway of the gates, as I begin my journey- up or down, I know not which- through the passages assigned to me, as I run my blade through the first Teler, his warm blood spattering across my armour and skin, an idea begins to take shape in the dark recesses of my mind: I can determine which troops are worthy to serve in my husband's army.

First left; another Sinda's blood to comfort my cold flesh. This solves every problem I have had with this atrocious battle: as happened on the bridge, will a man's lack of vigilance be enough to make him save me?

Second left; I am wearing red. Or will the man be stupid, merciful, or weak enough to sacrifice himself for me of his own accord?

Final left; this low-ceilinged tunnel is strangely unguarded- as yet. I will keep my life and refine the ranks of Maitimo's troops.

"Aeranor?"

A voice resounds from behind me. My test of the soldiers begins now. I whirl around, sending a drop of crimson liquid flying from my sword onto the stone floor, and the speaking soldier- Seregil- continues, "Are we not to open every door, search each room and corridor until we find..." His voice trails off, but he need not complete the sentence for Aeranor to understand the unspoken words.

"We are," the soldier replies, tone somewhat harsh.

"Then we have just neglected part of our duty." Seregil points to a diminutive wooden door, bearing corroded, once-black hinges, set in the wall behind us on the left. With no response but a sigh, I reverse my course and soon find myself with a hand on the small door's knob, soldiers in a cluster behind me. I turn it and am vaguely surprised to find it unlocked. Pulling it open, I take a single step in, landing at the top of a staircase.

It is lit by the same orange-yellow lamps that line the sides of the caverns above, but in a smaller quantity. Its gradual curve soon obscures the sight of whatever lies below. I begin down it slowly, overly conscious of the thump of my boots on the stone steps.

Quickly past the curve and capable of seeing the stairs' end, I stop dead in my tracks. The staircase descends into a wide chamber reminiscent of a wine cellar; small wonder that is- I now notice barrels lining its back wall. Lamps like mounted torches line the room's sides; their undulating rays illuminate the terrified faces of perhaps two hundred Sindarin women and children.

The cellar is utterly silent, utterly still, its occupants huddled together and casting frantic gazes back and forth between one another and us on the stairs. What is to be done? Orders were to kill- kill and search the bodies; kill I shall.

_"Even these innocents?"_ The shrill voice rends my mechanized thought of death for each pitiful soul gathered below our company. Yes! Even these- for my husband, for his family, for the Silmarils; there are no exceptions; there is no mercy.

_"Will you give them no chance?"_ The echoing words persist; why do I feel that their source is the very shadows? "Demand it; demand it! What harm will it do?"

"Kill afterward," I murmur in reply. "If they do not deliver it."

I clear my throat, and realize with a burst of pride that my sword is drawn and lifted. I pray to whichever Vala still listens to Fëanorians that I appear threatening.

"Every competent being present here knows exactly what brings our army into your realm today," says Aeranor. It is kind of him to take from me the speaking role, but I hope he still remembers who is leading here. He continues, "Yield to me the Silmaril and we will depart. All of you will keep your lives."

Silence still remains- did any of us really imagine that these people, who cling to the twice-stolen jewel as tightly as they would an item of their own crafting, would surrender even now? I descend one more step; the troops, and Aeranor at my side, move likewise. "Not yet!" shrieks the voice, and its volume causes my ears to physically sting.

"If any of you has the Silmaril, give it to us and live. Otherwise, we will slay every one of you."

My liaison's last attempt fails; the only sound to be heard is what seems to be a mother comforting her child: "Shh, Elwing, it will be all right."

I scan the cluster of Doriathrim, seeing only frightened faces, and not a soul making any move to produce the jewel. Suddenly, strikingly, my gaze falls upon a young boy. He cannot be more than twenty Sun-years old; his hair is as silver as the naked blade of the knife he holds. Death is in his hand, and worse, his unendurable sapphire eyes: my death; he is poised to strike.

Kill or be killed: _I will die_- live! I am going to live. This is the deciding factor, the climax, my turning point.

Each step slow, purposeful, almost dainty, I make my way to the floor of the cellar and stand eye to confused eye with a Sindarin woman. Every gaze on the stairs and in the chamber below them is fixed on me, watching, waiting- disbelieving?- what I am preparing to do.

In one swift motion, ere psychic voices can persuade me otherwise, I slide the sword through her neck. The previously still air of the cellar erupts into a wild flurry of screams and running feet as the woman's head and body, severed from each other, fall to the floor. Blood is warm.

I glance behind me to the soldiers, whose faces, I note with disgust, reveal horror, apparently at my deed. "You know our lord's command," Aeranor states, and it is, strangely, enough to compel them to follow me- and my example. Soon, a cacophony of shrieks has become the cellar's norm, and we feast our swords on the flesh of these Sindar.

I begin to kill and scan, kill and scan, eyes probing each corpse that falls for signs of the Silmaril in either shape or illumination. But most of all, I search everywhere for the boy, set on slaying him before he can do the same to me, but he seems not to be found again. He is behind me, I know it; even now he leaps to plunge that cruel little knife through my heart. I whip around, filthy plait swirling out almost horizontal to its foundation at the nape of my neck, and into the path of a sword.

I suppress a squeak of surprise as I watch half of the raven braid fall to the floor. Hopefully oil will be enough to keep the now-loosed remaining hair out of my face.

_Focus_. The boy. The boy; his eyes; his knife.

My distraction has caused the child to elude me still, and I sweep the massacre's- battle's expanse with my eyes in hopes that he is anywhere but behind me. And then I see the tunnel.

The lamps on either side of it are unlit, and the notion strikes me that countless Sindar- the boy, even an elf with the Silmaril?- may have escaped through it out of shadows and into darkness, completely unseen. But the fear is unfounded; Aeranor and another soldier stand under the arch, between the twilight of the chamber and deep night of the passageway, each with their sword in one of the perhaps twelve Sindar yet alive in the cellar.

The last few Doriathrim fall by blades other than my own, and soon one hundred Fëanorian soldiers- now clad in varying hues of red, from a young soldier's scarlet speckling to my own osmotic maroon- now stand (or crouch, searching still, if they are thorough) amid a sea of bodies littering the blood-stained stone floor.

I slowly tilt my head to peek over my shoulder, then turn fully around: he is not there. "You're safe," I whisper to myself, rubbing with my left hand the fresh scratches now marking my face thanks to some hysterical mother's fingernails.

I sheathe the sword and wade my way over to the stairs. "Let us try a different room," I call; I cannot help but notice an inexplicable look of questioning several send in Aeranor's direction upon the words. However, they still follow me up the stairs and out into the corridor above once more.


	6. Never Never Land, That's the Place

Never-Never Land, That's the Place

_"Whatsume'er the failings on his part, remember, reader, he were that good in his heart."_

_-Charles Dickens, __Great Expectations__, Joe's intended epitaph for his father_

The ceiling of the tunnel is now high-vaulted; the torches lining its sides send shadows dancing across to the opposite wall. The orange light is considerably brighter here than below in the wine-cellar, and thus far every room in my and my soldiers' area has yielded fruit much like that harrowing chamber's: mires of blood, and no Silmaril to rectify its spilling. _Still, no Silmaril._

The passage we now have landed ourselves in is the last of the main ones branching out from our zone of searching. It is long- seemingly endless- with not an opening or outlet on either of its lighted walls. One could be lost in this veritable labyrinth forever, taking turn after turn down shadowy tunnels, ever in futile hopes of discovering that elusive means of exit from these infernal halls.

No door, entryway, or arch, is to be found, yet still we press on, until at last, rounding a corner, light is to be seen at the end of our tunnel. It comes to an abrupt end, apparently, letting out into what I now see is a capacious chamber, the largest I have yet beheld in these caves.

Stepping out of the corridor and into this massive room, even from these Noldorin lips, belonging to one who has seen things of true beauty, an awed sigh escapes. The chamber, crowded to its fullest with warriors both attacking and defending, is an immense rotunda; its curved ceiling rises to a height that- if I could not assume I stand in the center of the hill- I would doubt could be found underground. From it hangs a great chandelier upon a glistening silver chain, lit with hundreds of tiny lamps whose flames reflect off of rows of dangling crystals, tier upon tier. The walls are lined with the mounted torches, though they illuminate little of the battle at hand in comparison with the suspended candelabra.

The roof is supported by a dozen columns, six on its right and left respectively, formed out of the cavern's living rock, elaborately carved in the shapes of trees with myriad tiny birds- nightingales, perhaps?- in their branches. My company has approached the room from the right, positioning itself toward what seems to be the back of it. On this back wall the chamber's purpose is revealed: the largest throne I have ever seen, dwarfing even King Finwë's in Tirion, sits centered against it.

But the throne's green cushion is vacant; no hand caresses the emeralds resting at the ends of its armrests. Four steps lead up to its seat, broad and gradual; upon these stand two figures, swords clashing. The prismatic reflections of the chandelier's crystals bounce in a rainbow of hues off of the interlocked blades.

One I know; one's identity I can assume. Tyelkormo could be expected to go right to the heart of the problem: _his_ heart, or so they said, once upon a time. Startlingly effeminate is his opponent: a flawless depiction of all I have ever heard of Lúthien- but she is dead; this must be her (fellow) greedy imbecile of a son. I wonder how long he and Tyelkormo have been battling.

An arrow whizzing past my head, close enough to tease a few loose hairs, then implanting its barb in the chest of a soldier to my left, yanks me out of my reverie of observation. For how long have I stood here, soaking in the scenery of the throne room without bothering to heed the thick battle occurring on its ground? _Have I, too, become unworthy to fight?_ But I was never worthy.

I extend a leg and kick the fallen _hröa_ aside to a clear the way out of the tunnel. I stride into the brightness of the rotunda behind Aeranor; he calls over his shoulder, "Forward, then," speaking for me once more.

Instantly, I and every troop behind me are thrust into a fight for our lives. I find myself crossing swords with a Sinda appearing to be of some importance, if the magnificent crest on his shield is any indicator.

A shielded adversary is never a delight to be pitted against, especially when one does not carry one herself; the extra weight, I decided during my seldom-implicated swordplay lessons in Aman, is but a detriment when you are not strong enough to bear it well. This man uses his as an offensive weapon, as well as to defend himself, and even after only a few minutes, my left side aches from contact with the pitiless metal.

The swords clang together, time and time again, stroke and trick alike matched by the other. The throne room is filled by that sound: the cacophonic ringing of steel on steel, harmonizing with agonizing screams, detached commands unintelligible to all but their recipients... _Detached._

_Focus. Life and death hang in the balance. _I will not slay myself by lack of vigilance, as have many fools that name themselves people of my husband. _At attention. Observe the opponent; the moment you fail to detect a move from him,_ you will die.

His eyes, they are storming with fury, so unlike the fear I am sure is in my own. He narrows his gaze; I avert my own; _he will kill me_. I do not want to see it.

The words are almost inaudible, and I could easily be mistaken, but I imagine I hear the Sinda murmur, "Noldorin wench." The sword clatters from my hand.

But the man falls. The blade that has worked its way through his armour from behind is revealed as Aeranor's, and I nod my thanks to the soldier, attempting not to be embarrassed by the show of weakness I have just made.

_Is Aeranor still acceptable?_ My mind spins in a hundred different directions, though I know full well that this mental turbulence might be the end of me. _He saved me; he should not be considered worthy. Kindness, compassion, none in this army need show them._

But without the noble element of self-sacrifice, is his really the sort of kindness I am on guard against? We both yet live; does that still make him weak? Surely a skillful act of rescue cannot-

My sword lifts into battle again on reflex alone, and this soldier puts up much less of a fight; as he sinks to the ground and I withdraw the weapon from his torso, my eyes are drawn to the throne. It is now surprisingly nearby; perhaps my dance into the arms of salvation moved my opponent and me further than repeated paces would be expected to.

At the foot of the throne's steps, my eyes alight upon an image I never would have predicted seeing: Tyelkormo- though next to Dior- lying prone upon the floor. I am too far off to tell their conditions, but before I can attempt it, a pair of sparring warriors comes between me and the throne, obscuring its vicinity from further- _remote_- investigation.

Call it love, call it instinct, call it curiosity or concern; but whatever it is that impels me to do so, I find myself making frantic way toward my brother-in-law. Dodging combating groups, leaping over bodies living and dead, running a Sinda through now and again- the few yards to the foot of the throne seem elongated by the multitude of obstacles peevishly blocking my path to it.

At last I reach it, and sink immediately to my knees beside my brother-in-law, back positioned toward the stone steps, and hopefully therefore invulnerable. A gaping rent in Tyelkormo's breastplate emits a steady crimson rivulet. His eyes are shut and his face- in this it doubtless resembles my own- is darkened by dried blood, marked by small cuts and scratches. Tentatively, I stretch out a hand to touch his arm.

The touch becomes a shake almost involuntarily; _oh, please let him wake. _His eyelids flutter open, but he blinks once, reducing his beautiful grey eyes to but forced-ajar slits in his face.

"Tyelkormo..." I begin, trailing off uncomfortably. There are no words for this: the end of life. Tears spring to my eyes at the thought, and they nearly flow forth upon my hearing what is left of his once-clear voice.

"Have you found it, Rányë?" he rasps. I bite my lip, forcing the tears to remain stationary; they now blur my sight of him. I shake my head, barely managing to whisper "no" as I rub them away.

"The oath..." Here he coughs, and of the spatter of blood that accompanies the action, a drop lands on my hand. Its warmth is now far from appealing. "_This is death," _whispers a high-pitched voice that belongs to neither me nor Tyelkormo."I did not keep it," he continues, voice like the rattling, one against the other, of some ailing tree's last brown leaves in even the slightest breeze. "It is the Darkness for me."

My whole body suddenly becomes cold; the only honest response to his assertion appears to be in the affirmative, against all I desire to say. I purse my lips, and the creeping tears that once more cloud my eyes must be swallowed with the sob in my throat.

"It is, Rányë," he persists, emotion for the first time evident in his tone.

I place his hand in mine, squeezing it as tightly as I close my eyes. I shake my head once more, slowly- and convincingly? The latter is doubtful. "No," I murmur, "no." But whether I say it to comfort him or to deny to myself what appears to be his impending and impatient death, I cannot say.

_I_ cannot believe my words, and even without seeing him, I know Tyelkormo does not either. I rub my eyes once more, and opening them, lock my gaze with his.

He manages to smile, but the effort it so obviously takes for him to do so negates any effect he might wish it to have upon me. "Thank you," he says, inhaling sharply before continuing, "This..." He coughs again, and I notice that the once-small stream of blood flowing from his chest has now become frighteningly profuse. "...probably will not keep me out of the Void, but-"

Another harsh intake of breath. "-there are children. Dior's. My men removed them; I told them to do anything they cared to with them, so long as-" Again, a deep-racking cough escapes his lips. "-their blood stayed off of my hands. They took the boys into the forest. I do not think they are dead. Yet." He gasps for breath with a throaty cough; even the speaking of these brief, disjointed sentences appears arduous for him. I clutch his hand more tightly. "Tell Maitimo. Save them. For me."

I nod vigourously, and the tears finally breach their pride-built dam and stream down my cheeks, perhaps scalding clean the stained flesh. My response, so swiftly is it spoken, borders on incoherence thanks to my weeping. "I will; I'll tell him. I promise I will; I promise."

"Don't do that," he rasps, "unless you want to end up like me."

I smile, squeezing his hand again. "But to perish as nobly as you is not an ill fate to have." Another fit of coughs seizes him before he is completely still, eyes wide open but not yet glassy, as though he sees things occurring in another world entirely.

"Rányë, it is so dark." The sentence is scarcely audible, and he is gone by the time I comprehend it, warmth already receding from the hand I grasp, gaze unfocused and staring at the chandelier, whose vibrant reflection gives his skin a false hue of vivacity.

He is dead. Impossible. For an unknown length, time seems to stop, and I am caught in a trance, staring helplessly at the _hröa _that once housed my second-eldest brother-in-law. Tears flow freely down my face, for once unheeded, until a sob recalls me to the present.

The battle has continued around me; I see that a few soldiers glance over at Tyelkormo's body, apparently aghast, but whether they regard me, I do not know. A Sinda makes his way toward me, and I behold nothing but an extension of the one Tyelkormo slew- and the one who slew him in return.

I waste no time or energy on blocking his blows, dodging with deftness that surprises me, as strange as it may sound, and instead strike the throat. He falls to the ground, a curse uprooted by my blade still upon his lips. I glance around the throne room in search of more opponents, but the only persons left standing are Fëanorian.

A sob racks my body; a voice reminds me that he is dead.


	7. This Particular Monster

This Particular Monster

_"What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day."_

_-Bernard Shaw, _Pygmalion

"And Turco told you this?" Maitimo raises an eyebrow in sharp contrast with the sincerity in his tone. "That's unlike him."

"Yes, of course he did," I reply, aggravated. "Do you think I would lie about such a thing?"

My husband sighs, not even trying to be discreet in the way he makes eye contact with Makalaurë. "Not knowingly," he says.

What he means by that, I do not know- and I do not wish to. We stand once more on the opposite bank of Esgalduin, shivering in the wind of a grey midwinter dawn. Perhaps an inch or so of snow has fallen in the night; it was an outdoor battle far from easy for the twins, who have joined their two remaining brothers to debate what action next to take.

Though we appear to have the victory, the invasion failed. Doriath may be ruined, Menegroth sacked, and at least a third of Neldoreth reduced to blackened stumps, but we have lost far more than we gained. The price even of three sons of Fëanor would have been an acceptable exchange for the Silmaril, but with no jewel as compensation for the deaths, or as security of salvation for their souls, raw grief and the Oath are poor substitutes for the deceased brothers.

When I received Tyelkormo's last request, my intentions were completely in favour of fulfilling it, but out here in the cold, my ardency for his petition is greatly diminished. However, Maitimo, despite this unfounded skepticism, seems quite concerned by the knowledge that two young children could be yet alive somewhere in these woods.

Makalaurë's expression is for once unreadable, his opinion on the matter kept quiet, but Maitimo continues, appearing to speak more to himself than the rest of us. "I suppose that leaves little option: we must begin a search for them." A decisive light appears in his eyes, and his gaze becomes fiercely present as he looks to each of his brothers, giving out orders for the quest he aims to begin."Makalaurë, take your soldiers east. Ambarussa, split your men into two groups; one will take the north, one the south, and I and my people-" He glances at me; apparently that term is all-inclusive. "-West. Scour the whole vicinity; do not return until sunset or until the princes are found."

His brothers make no move. "Go on! We have already lost time overnight, and they draw closer to death every moment we tarry."

"Russandol," Pityo's voice is quiet, "the men are exhausted. They need rest, not another fruitless search at your command."

"Fruitless?" Maitimo demands. "How is any quest to spare and salvage young lives fruitless? We have taken life enough in this realm; how could righting our sins weary them further?"

Makalaurë places a blood-stained hand on his elder brother's shoulder. "Russandol, they are certainly dead by now. Look at this snow; they cannot have survived in these conditions. I am sorry."

"Do you know that?" Maitimo returns, anger beginning to rise in his voice. "Show me their bodies, then explain to me that they died in the night. Pityo and Telvo and their men have not frozen to death after remaining exposed to the weather. Who are you to say that those children did?"

"Pityo and Telvo and their men were moving, not bound like your young princes certainly are. Pityo and Telvo and their men are strong. You know too well that the bodies of children could not withstand that," Makalaurë persists.

"You only make excuses against the decent act you are too lazy to perform. We seemed quick enough to kill despite the weariness of the march; is compassion really any more tiring?" His volume escalates- if but slightly- and I am grateful that I expressed no opinion on a potential action when delivering Tyelkormo's message.

"When enacted too late, yes." Telvo's tone possesses a note of finality.

"What of Tyelkormo?" Maitimo tries. "You surely would not disregard his final request of us- even he cared about these children before the end."

"Because he was desperate enough to believe that their lives would ransom his soul," counters Makalaurë. "Do not deceive yourself, Maitimo. There is nothing we can do for Tyelkormo now." Tears, perhaps unheeded, perhaps not, taint the clarity of his voice.

"Except claim the Silmaril and keep his oath for him," murmurs Pityo. He makes eye contact with Telvo, and the two smile sadly at one another, an action I find strangely disconcerting.

Maitimo addresses only the singer. "But that does not mean the same can be said of these innocents. As for weariness, the only thing that could tire me more than this search is the sleeplessness my not making it would doubtless bring about- but I will not force it upon the men."

He looks away from his brothers to the throng of soldiers that have gathered around their commanders' cluster of debate and raises his voice to address them. "I know you have all heard what it is I plan to do- alone, if I must. But if any of you would prove your loyalty to me, I ask that you join me in searching for the children of Dior."

The troops remain silent, shifting and shuffling uncomfortably before the crowd parts for perhaps forty men who approach my husband. Their leader, whom I recognize as Aeranor of my company, leads the group in a bow. "Not alone, lord. Never alone," he says simply.

"Thank you, all of you," replies Maitimo gravely. "It lifts my heart to know that there are still some willing to expend themselves on a deed of mercy," he adds, casting a fleeting glance over his shoulder at his brothers.

I fear they are resolute, and I am personally in full agreement with them. This quest of my husband's, though unmistakably noble, is clearly foolish, hopeless- and pointless. Makalaurë's words about Tyelkormo are all too true, and my promise to the dead _nér_, given well, means nothing. The air and wind bite at my skin and creep beneath my garments to chill me to the marrow; I only want to be warm. I only want to return-

"Rányë?" Maitimo turns to me, and a knot forms in my stomach at the knowledge that the question sure to follow will land me once more in places I do not want to go, performing things I do not want to. "I care not which you choose, but will you come with me or stay?" He may say he does not care, but the imploring look in his eyes tells me all I need to know.

I sigh, bowing my head. "Your wish is my command," I say resignedly, glad that he is too preoccupied today to give me the annoyed glance such responses usually procure from him. _"Always such the martyr_," he has said since even the days before we were married. It was never a compliment, and I disregard it still; why he does not understand my desire to please him, I will never understand myself.

He motions for his forty "loyal" troops and me to follow him, and our group of searchers soon stands slightly apart from the other soldiers, and most importantly, the three brothers. I have always found impressive Maitimo's ability to remember names, and he soon puts the talent into practice as he lists off each one of these men's, putting them into four groups of nine to eleven (based apparently on the fact that he and I will accompany the one journeying west). "By sunset three days from now," he says, "have returned here to Menegroth. Surely my brothers and their weary troops will want at least that long to rest before journeying home. If you find the children before then, living or dead, bring whatever evidence there is of either back here and send messengers to the other companies that they may cease the hunt."

The men affirm his command in a collection of nods and _Yes, my lord_'s, and Maitimo makes his way back over to Makalaurë and the Ambarussa, apparently to notify them of his plans. He returns with a quickness that indicates nothing but tension between them, and the four groups split apart at once in their respective directions, boots crunching conspicuously upon the snow.

"Farewell," calls Makalaurë from behind, and I am the only one to turn and give him a smile in reply.

~oOo~

Two sunsets, I suppose it is, into our "search", that I realize I am no longer doing anything of that sort. My eyes have been down, studying the snow, pitying my wet feet, and trying their best to gather from my surroundings that I am a good deal less miserable than I am.

We have seen no trace of the Sindarin princes, not a rope, nor a footprint, nor even a drop of blood, which, keeping in mind the snowfall (however shallow), should not be a surprise. The fact, though, seems to have taken its toll on Maitimo nonetheless; today he has spoken but once, to tell us that at noon we will turn back, aiming for Menegroth as straight as we may. In my opinion, we are going to be lost in this miserable forest for the rest of eternity, for no one in the company appears to know the geography of this place any more than my husband. I care little for either thought.

I glance up, the whiteness of the snow beginning to burn my weary eyes. (Maitimo indirectly promised us no rest on this journey, and he is unfortunately a man of his word.) Late-morning sunlight filtering down through unclad beech-boughs creates a teasing facade of warmth, mocking my numb fingers, toes, face, and just about everywhere else. By it, there is nothing to see but harshly glistening snow and the occasional dead leaf daring to thrust its stem or side up through the white blanket covering it.

The light grows golden, and at last we halt in a small clearing for but a brief respite and bite of waybread. The wafer is halfway to my mouth when a voice remarks to another, _"I honestly thought she would have seen it by now."_

My ears immediately prick up, every fiber of my consciousness attuned to this discussion of whatever it is that I have apparently missed.

_"You did? I always thought her vigilance far too lacking to see even a clear thing like that."_

My vigilance lacking? I look before I leap; I exercise caution. I know I am worthy to bear my husband's device. Why would this speaker question a trait I am pleased- even proud- to say I possess?

_"Are not the corpses tied to the tree behind her? I see them, rigid as boards, frozen like ice. I really did expect better of the girl than this."_

_"Behold her insubordination! Is she not in this party for the very purpose of searching? How disappointed her husband would be, to know that satisfaction of his quest was just within his grasp- but Rányë was simply too foolish to take note and tell him."_

_"Alas for the wench! To have ceased even to keep watch is quite the fall for her; and she was so close, so close. I really ought to have listened to you: she is quite use-"_

"Silence!" I shriek, leaping to my feet and whirling about to examine the tree I have been informed holds the end of our long labour. There is nothing: no bodies, no children, no ropes, only the slender bole of an elegant beech. "Liars!" I mutter, making the word a curse.

_"_We _lie? Never, my dearest, you are merely blind." _It is the first voice once more, calm and steady, addressing me for the first time.

"I can see!" I argue, rubbing my eyes in hopes to have the sight of whatever it is I ought to observe.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around once more. "Rányë." Maitimo stands behind me, exhaustion and grief apparent in his tone and eyes. "What is it? What can you see?"

Why, oh, why do I find myself on the verge of tears? "Nothing," I quaver, bowing my head. "I am sorry."

Maitimo sighs, shutting his eyes, and runs his hand once up and down my arm. "There is nothing to apologize for."

I sink to the ground once more as Maitimo wanders off to the edge of our small circle; sweet silence fills my ears- yet briefly- for a few soldiers beside me begin to converse, their speech revealing a general conviction similar to my own.

"Are we not to have turned back by now?" whispers one to Aeranor. "The other lords were correct, it seems, and I would prefer not to be left behind by the rest of the men."

Aeranor only nods in reply, turning instead to Maitimo. "My lord?" he says meekly.

"Yes." Maitimo's answer is hollow, completely devoid of emotion, but he elaborates, "You think that we have searched long enough." He stops in his pacing tracks and turns to meet the eyes of the men behind him.

"We do," says Aeranor simply. "It will be sunset in but a few hours. Do you think we will be able to reach Menegroth in time?"

"No." Maitimo smiles sadly and shakes his head, immediately stopping in his tracks. "But you want to try still, do you not?"

"Yes, my lord- it seems more than time that we should return to Menegroth and take some rest. And it is past noon." I do not know the name of the soldier now speaking.

"So it is," Maitimo returns. "Our ways part here, then."

I swallow hard, feeling my eyes involuntary widen. He cannot mean...

"My l-" begins Aeranor, but he is instantly interrupted.

"Do not wait for me here. If I never return to Ereb, count me dead."

Tears spring hot to my eyes; how can he speak words like those so plainly, so matter-of-factly? He is abandoning us, and he will die. _Or are we abandoning him? _Surely not- but yes. No one speaks for a moment; we are all torn, I think, between following our lord still and the exhaustion bidding us turn toward a night's rest.

He knows this. "None of you are to accompany me, and you are to make way toward Menegroth as quickly as you are able: I order you." He glances around the troops, and at last his gaze pierces my own; he quirks his lips ever so slightly upward into a smile, but I cannot find the heart to return it. For pride's sake only do I not run to embrace him.

"Farewell," he says, voice low. Before the moment can fully register with me, he has turned his back on us, disappearing into the dense trees ahead without a trace left behind save footprints in the shallow snow.

The soldiers sit dumbly for a few minutes, then rise at a word from Aeranor. I look with dismay upon the _coimas _I dropped upon the forest floor when I stood to find the bodies of the princes.

_"An unfortunate loss, that," _comments a voice detachedly.


	8. Can Read Minds

Can Read Minds

_"Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking. You have grown outside the puzzle, and your piece no longer fits."_

_-Cindy Ross_

Irritated, I yank a comb once more through my now-shortened hair. What once streamed down my back as something of my appearance that nearly pleased me now falls but a few inches below my shoulders thanks to the battle. _Just my luck_, I think to myself, giving a stubborn tangle in the wet locks yet another violent tug.

I sit cross-legged on the foot of the bed at Ereb, staring crossly into the vanity mirror a few feet from me. It is the morning after our return to the fortress, and since the arrival, I have eaten, slept, and bathed. By now February is waning, and this far south, spring is already in the air, taking the fragrant and melodious forms of early-blooming flowers and songbirds nesting in the sparse trees surrounding the citadel.

It is pleasant, I suppose, though something about it feels, for no particular reason, terribly strange. Perhaps it pertains to the simple fact that a return to the daily grind of life after something like Doriath- the Second Kinslaying as some have already christened it- seems an oxymoron. Perhaps it is Maitimo's absence; though we have only just arrived back, the gaping void where he ought to be is even more pronounced than it was on the return journey. But that notion- that spring is unnatural- may not even be my own, nor my own the feeling that the revival of normal life causes me to think in such a way.

I shiver, glancing obligatorily around the room for the source of such reasoning, but no one is to be found. Maitimo remains in Doriath (or rather, what is left of it), and my brothers-in-law are downstairs, eating or talking- most likely both. I place the comb down upon the dresser and run a hand through my hair: smooth, clean, not even the tiniest-

Knot is found. With a sigh, I reach across and take up the comb once more, prepared to annihilate the last of this persistent plague, when the bedroom door opens.

I instinctually shrink back, half scooting, half crawling, to the opposite side of the bed, but I relax upon seeing that the intruder is only Makalaurë. "What is it?" I say, not intending my voice to come across as sharply and shrilly as it does.

"I was only wondering whether or not you planned to make an appearance at breakfast," he answers almost wearily. "Excuse me for... troubling you?" The ending statement is markedly quizzical, almost becoming the unspoken question whose answer neither of us understand: I would know the inquiry, along with this elusive answer, if only the thoughts remained in my mind.

Stolen._Stolen thoughts... Who is this bandit?_"Are you coming downstairs to eat, Rányë?" Gratefully, I am interrupted.

I nod placidly, in silence returning the comb to its place on the vanity and following Maitimo's brother out the door, through a corridor still as dark as night, and finally down the main staircase. Descending the stairs, we emerge into the high-ceilinged hall serving as a massive parlour. Separate sitting areas lie on either side of the steps' foot, but we pass through the middle of both of them, passing through an unadorned archway in their back wall. It opens into the private dining room and attached kitchen where the family has eaten meals since we moved here decades ago, after the disaster affectionately known as Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

The breakfast table is silent, and I wince at the squeak the feet of my chair make against the stone floor. There are four empty seats, I notice with chagrin, and wish I had not. The twins do not even look up upon our arrival, much less speak, and as soon as I have procured myself a slice of bread, an apple, and a cup of water from the containers lining the table, I bow my head likewise and attempt to turn my attention to the food.

The quiet soon morphs from melancholy into uncomfortable, at least to my mind. I find myself wanting to break it, but what is there to be said? _"So, what are the plans for today?" "What of the Silmaril; are we to begin a search for it again soon?" "How long will it be before the oath begins to torment you again_?"

I glance around the table once more, realizing that I have been thinking far too loudly. I blush to think that my awkward prompts of conversation were heard by everyone present, regardless of their lack of reaction. Three bowed heads, two copper, one ebony, meet my roving eyes; so kind they are to ignore my stammers and ineloquent queries, the heeding of which would only humiliate me. Almost I make to thank them aloud for their courtesy, but I remain silent instead, sufficed to believe they count this internal debate as enough.

Minutes more pass without speech, sounds only of the meal filling my ears: the tapping of a glass against the tabletop as it is set down, the crunching of multiple apples' flesh between teeth, silverware's clink on porcelain as some sort of pork is sliced. I turn to my bread, lifting it from the plate, and then, inexplicably, I find myself complying with some sudden desire to twist it at a corner.

I do so, and the slice's edge rotates, compressing and coiling, until at last it tears apart from the rest of the piece. I hastily pop the severed chunk into my mouth and fling the remainder of the bread back down onto my plate.

In this way I consume the slice's four corners, and am beginning the process upon the newly-formed vertices-_round; I will make it round_- when the silence is finally broken by Makalaurë.

"Pityo, Telvo, are you going hunting today?" The innocent questions feigns normalcy, and its asker is such an actor that it nearly accomplishes its goal.

I look up once more, finding I am not the only one to have done so as the twins give a rare answer: a slow nod from Telvo and a vehement shake of Pityo's head.

"Which is it?" inquires Makalaurë, a smile nearly ghosting upon his lips.

The twins look at one another sharing a brief and hollow laugh before responding in unison, "Yes, but not for long."

Pityo elaborates, "We've only just... arrived home, after all."

"But that is good," their elder brother replies quietly. "In that case, I think I will come with you."

"Please do," replies Telvo. With a glance toward the empty seats, he adds, "We're going to be a man or two short today."

"Then it certainly will not do for me to be left out," is the response, tainted by some bizarre, bittersweet inflection in Makalaurë's voice. "When do we leave, and to where are we going?"

"As soon as you have finished your meal," answers Pityo. "And personally, I vote for riding south." Telvo nods as if to confirm his twin's plans, and the two rise from the table bearing empty plates toward the kitchen where the poor cook will be burdened with washing them.

Makalaurë swiftly follows suit, and I am quick on their heels with my own dish and glass. "Are you coming with us, then, Rányë?" My eldest brother-in-law turns to face me after setting his plate on the counter. Skepticism is in his tone; he knows well exactly how often I care to waste my time hunting.

"Of course not," I reply- why does my voice sound so aloof and haughty as I say it? I turn up the corners of my mouth, quick to cover my unintentional tone with a softly spoken, "No, I think I'll just stay behind and take some more rest today."

"As usual?" quips Pityo, and I nod in response. It is rare even for me to procure an invitation, like Makalaurë's of today, to join the hunt; I have always doubted the brothers would want my company even were I as zealous for the sport as they.

I walk alone back up to my bedroom, where I proceed to seat myself on the bed once more, staring absently into the mirror once more, alone in a chamber illuminated by bright sunshine pouring in through the slats in the window-blinds. As on every day before the Kinslaying- invasion- march- call it what you wish- I find myself wondering as to what I should do with my time. Placing a hand on my nightstand, I grab the knife that abides on top of it, realizing to my annoyance that it is covered in the dust of three months' absence. My task for the day is made appallingly clear, and I toss the weapon back down upon the small table before rising slowly from the bed to find a rag somewhere downstairs.

I trudge slowly down the shadowy passage along which lie the various quarters of my brothers-in-law. Tears spring to my eyes as I pass the first three on my right: Carnistir's, Curvo's, Tyelkormo's. The loss of the two younger of these has proved as strange to me as the loss of Findekáno at the Nirnaeth. I have learned that a death of which one knows only by word can easily adopt a sense of the surreal, to be felt as a bloodletting- slow and steady, barely painful until it has lasted too long for anything to be done about it, rather than as a rent to the heart- swift, agonizing, and apparent.

Perhaps this is why the loss of Tyelkormo seems to me more final than Curvo and Carnistir's deaths. It feels as though the younger brothers have merely disappeared, and might return at any moment, eyes aglow and laughing at how we assumed we had gotten rid of them at last. Some part of me cannot help but assume they are only with Maitimo searching for Dior's sons still; when he returns-_he must, and he will_- it seems so shall they. But Tyelkormo's name, when called to mind, is associated with but one word:_Void_.

I realize I stand frozen in the hallway, staring at the three doors with tears streaming warm down my face. For once I do not chide myself; there is no one here to watch me grieve, and I permit the emotion to linger as long as it may.

_Rag_. The recollection of exactly why I am in this corridor in the first place flashes across my mind as soon as the flow of tears diminishes, and I tear out of the hall and down the steps with a speed whose cause I cannot pinpoint. Passing into the kitchen, I find the cook, a young_nís_who, if I am not mistaken, is the wife of the soldier Seregil, putting away the last of the dishes. She whirls around upon hearing my coming, and the curiosity in her gaze is unmistakable.

"What is it, lady?" she asks, probing my face with her eyes. I suppose I must be a sight to behold: out of breath, more than likely red of eyes and complexion, with the salty residue of tears clinging to my skin. But can she not hear the screams of the thoughts I try to banish as the quest for the rag dominates? They deafen me, I know: a gaggle of notions trying their best literally to reconcile death and life.

Inhaling deeply, I manage to whisper, "A rag."

She glances at her feet-_why_?- then meets my eyes. "You would like one, then, lady?" She bends to open a cabinet below the counter, brushing a strand of loose honey-hued hair out of her face as she draws out my quarry. I nod emphatically, and snatch the worn piece of cloth out of her hand before muttering my thanks and striding hastily out of the kitchen.

I would really prefer not to pass through the corridor at all on my way back to the bedroom, but I must, so I hold the rag out on the left side of my head, spreading it broadly with both hands so as to block out any vision of the three doors. A thick thread, apparently loosened by years, falls down from it into my face; I cry out, smacking it away and nearly letting go of the rag in the process. I run once more; I cannot, I will not, I should not, look upon those three doors again. Nothing matters save reaching the bedroom: all I wanted was to dust my nightstand._Leave me alone_.

"_But you are not alone,_" whispers a voice.

"Tyelkormo?" I ask feebly, even as I run through the bedroom door, shutting it hastily behind me before collapsing onto the bed. I still clutch the rag.

"_Hardly_," declares every voice in unison. They laugh, and then there is only silence, precious and distinct. I begin to hum in hopes of quieting them permanently, chuckling to myself as I realize the tune is that of a Valinórean nursery rhyme.

From the nightstand I first remove the knife, then a many-armed candlestick. Finding the rag completely xeric, I dip it in the basin resting upon the dresser, delighting myself in the pleasant sound the dripping, splashing water makes as I wring it out. I wipe off the nightstand, then realize my humming makes the silence but more pronounced. That can be easily amended.

I round the bed to stand near the window and raise the blinds. Dappled late morning sunlight enters past the budding branches of a tree growing close to the side of the citadel, rooted firmly in the hillside. I gently lift the latch holding the window shut and allow its two panes to swing open freely, letting in birdsong and a warm breeze.


	9. Be In Two Places At the Same Time

Be in Two Places at the Same Time

_"Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."_

_-Terry Pratchett_, Reaper Man

It is simply too dark in here to sleep. Tilion is yet waxing; no moonlight falls through the blinds and onto the bedroom floor, and the stars here are too far away to provide any real illumination. A cloudy, cloudy night: blacker than tar, blacker than onyx, blacker than dead Curvo's hair, wraps herself around Amon Ereb, weaving her way into every corner of the citadel and making the fortress into a veritable abyss.

In the bed, where I find myself exhausted and alone, with a scratchy sheet above and below me, I am on an island in this darkness, and reasonably afraid. These two elements are not a menace I am unfamiliar with.

_The Treelight waned and the Treelight grew. I sat at a window in some high tower of the citadel at Formenos, trembling and watching the sky. It had not been a good day._

_All day it- that horrible feeling of being watched by sinister eyes- had haunted me: the terrifying notion that someone, this lurking presence, stood behind me, poised to strike with a cruel, cold dagger whenever I should turn my back to it. Twice I caught a glimpse of it- however fleeting- in the mirror._

_I did tell Maitimo, but his only aid was a touch on the arm and soft-spoken reassurance that, "There is nothing to fear." How many times had I heard that from him before?_

How many times do I still hear that from him? I know I would be hearing it now, were he not... elsewhere. We have been home three months- three dark spring months full of rain- and there has been no word or sign of him. The twins say he is stubborn. Makalaurë says he is thorough. I try not to say that he is dead.

But here, alone in this blackness, that seems his most plausible fate. _Alone. _But I am indeed alone, and though I wish Maitimo were here, at very least there is none other in the room with me. The reminder of the watchful gaze is somewhat heartening; I despise this hideous darkness, but at least there are no eyes within it; it is only me- which could be a frightening notion in itself- but less so than unfamiliar and malicious onlookers. These shadows disguise nothing that was not present in the light, of that I am for once certain.

It is somewhat of a relief to think that there is truly nothing but darkness itself to fear, and I know that this is not the first time I have been abandoned- by Maitimo- to it.

_But my husband had been pre-occupied for most of the day, concerned over his father, and that same Fëanaro's impending meeting with Nolofinwë tonight. He had spent the majority of his time either talking in close quarters with Makalaurë about whatever developments they hoped would arise from the confrontation, or trying to forget about it on a fruitless deer-hunt with Tyelkormo and the twins. Perhaps he feared his father's volatility; the slightest word misspoken, ill-cast glance, or even his half-brothers' very presence could be enough to set the Valarin feast onto a course for disaster at the crown prince's capable hands._

_But, to my mind, there was much hope for the meeting; if everything went as desired, our relationships with the extended family would be forever altered- for the best- which I knew would be some of the most wonderful news Maitimo could hear... and therefore, a delight to me as well._

_Even at that very moment, I knew fully that the hammer-stroke to decide the fate of this family could be descending to meet its anvil as I stared out of the lofty window, but I was more concerned with stilling my quivering fingers and ridding my back of the eyes I could still feel boring into it. Not daring to turn around, I merely swallowed hard, pursed my lips, and clasped my hands tightly together in a vain attempt to shut out the fear._

_I blinked, though I did not realize I had done so until it seemed that I had failed to open my eyes again. Everything was black, pitch-black, too dark even for the formation of shadows, and I was trapped, enveloped in this ebony haze, completely alone._

In this moment, I feel at one with the past: the two epidemics of darkness meld into one surrounding, entangling, fearsome shadow. Make it stop; make it stop- I only want to see the Trees- _the Sun_. But it is only a lack of light, is it not? I am fully able to illuminate the room on my own: a candelabra rests on both nightstands, and I have but to ignite one flame to brighten the room and chase away my terrors- but I fear to move, lying still as a corpse beneath these sheets and praying that dawn will come, and perhaps my husband with it. I suppose I have yet to abandon all hope.

_I extended a hand in front of my face, for the first time in hours actually having to coax the movement from its muscles; they were not shaking on their own. I wiggled the fingers- and saw nothing, not the hand, not the motion, only darkness._

_I knew I should have been able to see out of the window, viewing through that heavy pane the surrounding trees, a rooftop garden below, the powder-blue sky of early evening, and the mingled light of Laurelin and Telperion. But I could not, and there was only darkness, lurking, looming, devouring, and without break._

_I doubt I will ever know how long I sat there, veritably frozen to the stool by the window, utterly petrified. Once it seemed to me that the shadow deepened, became almost tangible, creeping in through the window's tiny crack of opening as a foul fume that left a flavour reminiscent of the stench of rotting carcasses in my mouth._

_It was an odour I had only once before encountered: when I had failed to cook and "saved for later" the flesh of some poor creature on the first and last hunting trip of my youth, years upon years ago. But that is a scent difficult to forget, and I somehow knew it immediately._

It is not so terrible in here; at the very least the scent of this room, when noticeable, is innocuous. With a deep inhale, I perceive the fragrance of stone- aged but firm, and in its steadfastness a comfort to cling to on this fearful night. Attached to that aroma are memories of a time before Ereb, of Himring's insurmountable strength, when nothing could quite scare the lady of such an adamant fortress and realm- not even the darkness which no walls or might can hold at bay.

And there was a time before Himring, even before Formenos, when darkness did not truly exist: Tirion was a city of stone.

_Fumbling in the blackness, I managed to slam and latch shut the window; no longer able to enter the chamber, the taste's potency slackened. It remained, though, lingering repulsively in the back of my throat._

_As horrific and eternal as it was and seemed, this moment of suffocating darkness passed in what must be named a relatively short amount of time, and I was soon left in simple blackness alone, not the sickening aura of the deep "un-light"._

_Just as I began to fancy that the light of a few stars- now shining more clearly than I knew they were capable of- was visible through the window, I heard the small room's only door swing open violently. It smacked against the wall and startled me up from my seat in a turning leap to face it._

How did I comfort myself that night? Could staring out a window I only imagined I could see- into yet further blackness- have truly calmed my nerves? And that darkness was far worse than this: stifling and warm as it was exposing- to its evil origin, rather than tonight's: cool and fresh as it is enveloping.

But it is enveloping. I peer around the room, eyes wide open and probing this pitch-black pall for the shapes of anything recognizable; it should not surprise me that the darkness remains. That night so long ago was at least better in this: that the darkness' sheer completeness was not so eternal.

_Standing in the doorway, a crackling orange torch in hand, was Ambarussa, the younger, by the shade of his hair, though the poor lighting made identification of the young nér difficult. Whichever of my brothers-in-law he was, he looked every bit as panicked as I felt._

_"Russandol told me I would find you here," he said quietly; somehow the darkness suggested that loud tones were inappropriate. I nodded, and he continued, "He wants me to take you to the treasury. It's-" His voice faltered for but a moment. "It is important."_

_Why Maitimo had not come upstairs to retrieve me himself, I did not stop to wonder, though some part of me did bother with being offended. I rose from the stool and strode toward Telvo; he was leading the way down the turret's stone staircase before I had even quite reached him._

Did I truly arise from my safe position on that other night? I know I must have; I know I did. I suppose the only reason such was possible was that I was no longer alone. Perhaps tonight is worse, after all. Though more terrible, more surprising, while it lasted, the shadow in Aman did not do so: last.

Within half an hour at the very least I had possessed not only light but a companion as well; tonight it must be hours since I had either. I could change part of that, I think, were I not so terrified to move, and in doing so step out blindly into the blackness. There may be nothing there but furniture, but I cannot know that- really know that- without a light, and I am too afraid to make one.

Yet there is no way to obtain a companion, at least not the only one in this world that I want. In fact, he may no longer be in this world- _no! _I attempt to oust the thought from my mind, and though the past for a while becomes more prominent, it lingers quietly, just beyond mental articulation.

Here I am again, fighting the same internal war I have been for three months- and especially the past three hours. That other night progressed swiftly; this one revolves in an infuriating cycle of terror.

_"Telvo, what has happened?" I inquired, trying my best to match his pace. I really cannot say why I asked it; how could I have expected him to know any more than I? Nonetheless, the answer I received proved terribly informative._

_"It is Grandfather." Telvo paused, and his silence remained for so long that I was ready to prompt him for further information, when he continued shakily, "I- he- we- We think that he is..."_

_Telvo halted once more- an uncharacteristic and unnerving development for the typically verbal nér- and this time, I did prompt him. "Responsible?" I tried. "Gone? Afraid?"_

Afraid: I thought the king perhaps _afraid_. It was a pathetic notion, but one that at the time seemed perfectly reasonable. I had never been more frightened, I could see that the same was true of Telvo, and I assumed that everyone else must feel (or have felt, in Finwë's case) the same.

This night I know far better, and at last see the absurdity of my fear. Here I am, a warrior- at least in word- and veteran of battles, frightened out of my mind simply because of a moonless night. It takes darkness to sleep- does it not?- and sleep is what I crave. This will be the greatest humiliation I may ever know, should anyone discover what it is that has kept me awake for so many hours. No one else in this entire fortress feels the same right now, of that I am certain, as certain as I was that other night that everyone did.

_We reached the end of the stairs and took a left down the high-ceilinged corridor ending in the door behind which stood yet another set of steps, these leading to the underground cellar wherein was the iron-bound vault holding the wealth of Formenos._

_"Dead," whispered Telvo, and the way he said it, full of a hundred emotions, yet in that one simple word, as though he were telling me nothing of greater import than the time of day, caused it almost to fail to register with me at all. It came from his lips like smoke from a furnace that one realizes only too late is brewing to explode, like a curse from the mouth of a child, a gradual surprise, a threat unheeded. A chill not caused by the eyes of lurking watchers crept its way down my spine._

_"Dead," I repeated flatly, quickening my pace against an instinctual desire to slacken it. "But how?" I dared to probe. "Is that- is that even possible?"_

_"Apparently so."_

This night, O night of nights, this night is one of bliss! How could I lie here frozen by terror when the world without is so full of life. Yes, in recent months I have felt the pain of death, of loss and grief, but tonight has at least brought no further anguish to my soul.

Every member of the family alive this morning yet lives now- as far as I know- and how could I entrap myself, frightened and emotional, in this ridiculous bed with that wonderful notion known to be true? If I desire to sleep, I may, without fear or grief, even with a shining light ablaze to keep the terrors of shadow at bay.

I sit up and reach for the tinderbox on my nightstand, fumbling with it until I open it and ignite a violet taper into full flame. Four other candles rest in the holder, and I use the first to light them as well. Five tiny fires now illuminate the room, and the shadows recoil into the corners where they belong. Unable to keep myself from doing so, I smile as I lay back down, wide eyes relishing the light now in ample supply.

Even as my eyelids begin to droop, blending candlelight and shadows into a sallow haze, they are startled open again by the pronounced squeak of the door on its hinges. Parallel to the bed, the door opens outward rather than in, and for a moment the blackness of the hall without obscures my visitor's identity- just a moment.

And in the next, Maitimo stands at the foot of the bed, wearing a weary smile on weary features. His nonchalant greeting is nearly a question: "Surely you do not keep this vigil every night...?"

He hardly finishes it before I have arisen, run to him, and tossed my arms around his neck. He firmly returns the embrace, allowing me to bury my face in his chest and release my long-pent tears.

He smells a bit like trees and a bit like blood; he is somewhat thinner, and the lines of care beneath his eyes are deeper- but such things are the least of my concern. How now could my mind dwell on aught save that he lives, and better, that I am in his arms?

I know not what nonsense I babble out in greeting, in upbraiding, or in praise, but he heeds none of it, instead gently stroking my back with calloused fingers.


	10. This Is Judgment Night

This Is Judgment Night

_"Tea does our fancy aid,_

_repress those vapours which the head invade,_

_and keeps that palace of the soul serene."_

_-Edmund Waller_

Steam curls delicately from the kettle's spout. Here I sit beside the low table in the right-most of the two sitting rooms, watching the pot breathe forth its hot fumes. My cup rests beside it, hungry, empty, waiting to be filled; I am thirsty and I am cold: I want tea. A genuine smile- the first since a time I cannot even remember- crosses my face as I lift the cast iron jug from its position, but disappears when I am forced to drop the kettle heavily back down upon the tabletop. How could I expect to be capable of lifting such a thing?

Wordlessly, Makalaurë leans over and lifts it for me, pouring out the steaming, ruddy-red liquid until a hand from me signals enough, still holding Maitimo- who speaks- in rapt attention.

"Brothers, I have no plans to attack these innocent exiles. Think- some of them were made thus by our own hands. Is it just; is it kind; is it right to continue to make war upon them for a jewel we do not have to need?"

I simper sadly down into the swirling murk of the tea; poor Maitimo- he has yet to come to terms with the fact that this is a burden that will not ever be cast aside. I want nothing more than for him to be free, but such can only even begin to come about unless he does the very thing he has just spoken against.

Raising the cup to my lips, I blow on it, dispersing much of the steam before swallowing a great draught of it. The tea burns like acid within my mouth, upon my tongue, down my throat. I hastily slam the cup back down onto the table, missing perhaps a third of its contents. Milk- milk will cool it; I lift a small porcelain pitcher and dilute the tea with a stream of snowy white. It is so pure, before it mingles with the tea, tainting itself while bringing the tea just the tiniest bit closer to its own once-innocent hue.

It is Pityo that responds, unless it is Telvo. (I care not to look up; my eyes are for the tea alone.) "What, Russandol, could you possibly mean by that?" The quiet answer is clearly rhetorical. "There is little clear in our lives save that we must use force to reclaim the Silmaril. Since the exiles refuse to surrender it peaceably, our only hope lies with invasion. You know that."

Maitimo sighs. "Ever you hold your own interests foremost."

Even after seeing the milk disperse over the tea's surface, I lift a long-handled spoon and rotate it once, twice, thrice, around the cup. It must be fully saturated; let mingle the liquids, leaving not a drop of either wholly inviolate or wholly darkened. Apprehension rises unbidden within me as I raise the cup, no longer steaming, to my mouth once more. I beg, let it not burn.

"Where else should they be held?" is the response, from Telvo, it appears. "Vows such as ours are not fond of taking second place. If you wish to think less of the Oath, there is no option but to attempt its satisfaction." He is met with silence from Maitimo.

At first I smile; the temperature of my drink could be no more perfect. It soothes the burns left in the wake of my first swig, but it does little to sweeten the flavour of what I now begin to realize is a terribly bitter bunch of leaves. Grimacing, I swallow, trying my utmost to keep the liquid from brushing many of my taste-buds. _Where is the sugar?_

Makalaurë speaks up, for only the second time since this debate began. "He is right, Russandol. There is no other way. You know I would stand as you do, and even more firmly, if there were aught beside war that could quell the Oath. I am tired; I only want this to be over, and I will take any means to that end. Don't you see? This is our climax; all is downhill from here."

"_I, our, me_- when did we cease to realize that we are not the only ones damned by our vow?" Maitimo's tone is caustic. "Our rashness- and the violence it has goaded us to- reaches far beyond the house of Fëanor and its jewels. As for myself, I would rather bear the burden of the Oath than that of innocent life. There is enough blood on our hands as it is."

I scoop two great dollops of sugar out of a small jar and into the tea. I take up the spoon once more and vigourously go about integrating these latest additions into the concoction taking shape in my cup. Around and around, here we go again. I only hope that the flavour improves.

"The Oath leaves you no options of personal feeling or moral judgment, no room to weigh it against remorse," Telvo answers him. "You reclaim the Jewel, or you are left to the Void."

The quiet lingers just long enough for the rapid clinking of the spoon's bowl against the sides of my teacup to grow pronounced and dominant, long enough for Maitimo, rubbing his temple, to murmur, apparently irritated, to me, "Rányë, I am sure you've stirred more than sufficiently."

I glance up from my concoction to murmur, "I am sorry," in return as I freeze my hand mid-motion and remove the spoon, looking away from him in time to see the tea continue to swirl in the wake of my vehement mixing. With a deep breath- in contrast to the exhale of earlier- I elevate the cup and take a hesitant sip.

"But would the Void really be so terrible?" counters Maitimo. "The crimes we have already committed are so unforgivable that I fear the Void is already our fate, regardless of how we try to deter it. Would it not be better to suffer alone someday in the distant future, than to inflict suffering upon innocent others now? Our foolishness in swearing the oath is no fault of those innocents; why should they pay the penalty for it?"

Lukewarm and grainy, the tea is nothing shy of repulsive. It is all I can do not to throw the cup in disgust down to the table, and with great concentration of effort I set it down with overdone gentleness, shoving it aside as soon as it hits the tabletop. I need a new serving entirely.

"But you forget, Russandol," interjects Makalaurë, "those whose fate was, as you say ours is, already the Void. Tyelkormo, Carnistir and Curvo died without fulfilling the Oath; where do you think they are now? The Oath tells us: Everlasting Darkness. Someone will pay the penalty for our actions, whether we invade the Havens or not. Would you rather it be your own brothers or greedy strangers?"

The liquid streams forth from the spout with a puff of steam, not too much, not too little. I scoop out the sugar first, to let the heat melt the crystals while it lasts, taking but one helping for now. I have left room for a splash of milk to cool the tea, and I pour it, taking up the long spoon to stir it all together once more, this time doing so slowly, quietly, and deliberately.

Tone flat, Maitimo replies, "But you forget, Makalaurë, that we are bound to not one Jewel, but three, the other two of which are- no doubt- permanently out of our reach. With that in mind, it is the Darkness for all seven of us, and it is all one whether we take Sirion or not. There is nothing that can be done for our brothers, for, without a successful attack on Angband itself, the Oath can never be fulfilled."

Pityo ignores him."Russandol, our oath did not say, 'whoso hideth, or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, finding keepeth, or afar casteth all three Silmarils together' will have our hate and wrath, but that he who withholds from us even one of them will die at our hands. It left the amount of hope for completely fulfilling it out of its calculations entirely; we swore, so we must try."

"But it does not provide an excuse for our sins," answers Maitimo, voice hollow. "The judgment we receive for them will not be any the less harsh because the oath consigned us to pillage, burn, and massacre. We are still responsible for the lives we have taken; you act as if the Oath exonerates us."

"It does not exonerate us," says Pityo simply, "nor does it excuse us: It merely explains us."

"And makes us predictable," adds Makalaurë. "I doubt that many in all of _Arda_ are oblivious to the Oath's existence. Whenever someone takes a Silmaril as his own, he does it knowing full well that it is our property and that we will seek to reclaim it, at whatever cost. We have always asked kindly; we have given two chances to both realms, warning them of what this monstrous oath would make us do and become. We asked, even demanded, that they surrender it peaceably; they refused, and thus sealed their own fate."

Maitimo sighs. "I know."

"Are they really so blameless, after all? Are we really so much more selfish or greedy than they?" Telvo's soft queries bite even me like darts. "They have Mandos; death for them is peace- not so for us. We may be doing them no favours, but at least we do them no real harm- nothing like what their greed will inflict on us."

"Weigh the finality, Russandol," Makalaurë takes up the argument. "Their misery will be only temporary. I know you would say that our fate is the Void regardless, without the other two Jewels, but would you also thus abandon hope? I refuse to accept such a doom until I lie dying, slain by a last attempt to regain the Jewels. Will you damn yourself so soon?"

I purse my lips and clench my eyes shut, slowly elevating this fresh cup to my lips. Its sides are warm, but it is not steaming; the tea is shaded with milk but not so diluted as to cool it immediately. I open my mouth once more and tip it up ever so slightly, taking in the tiniest swig I may of its contents.

"No," Maitimo answers, "I will not."

_Perfect_. Warm but not hot, sugary but not grainy, and even the milk has added a sweetness all its own to the mixture. At last I have got it right, and I savour the tea before letting it slip its way down my throat and taking another small sip. My hard labour has been fully compensated, and the fruits of it are more than satisfactory. I smile again, delighted by the meshing of the tastes to form the most delicious cup of tea I can remember drinking.

"Am I to take that as an agreement to make the attack?" says Telvo, a smile almost in his tone.

"I hope so," asserts Makalaurë. "We need you, Russandol; you cannot leave us to fight this battle on our own."

I dare for once to glance up from my tea, in time to see Pityo nodding his agreement.

"And I have no plans to," replies Maitimo simply, leaning forward in his position beside me. "When shall we make our invasion?"

"Thank you," whispers Makalaurë, making eye contact with his elder brother that expresses more than words ever could.

Maitimo sighs, looking at me for the first time, a smile- strangely- upon his face. I only return it, peeking over the rim of a now-empty teacup.


	11. Execution

Execution

_"I do mean that wickedness, when you examine it, turns out to be the pursuit of some good in the wrong way."_

_-C.S. Lewis_

When I run my sword through the chest of the first Telerin man, I find that, to my chagrin, I have almost forgotten what battle feels like. The motion feels unnatural, the jagged sounds of the sword's movement through his flesh, almost _sickening_? I am frozen into place, eyes staring unseeing down onto the _hröa _in something like surprise.

"I..." I murmur. "I think I just killed a man." My voice is inaudible over the roar of battle: clanging swords, agonized shrieks, grunts, cries, moans. I stand in the middle of a cobblestone street but lightly dusted with white sand; it appears to be- or have been- a marketplace, judging by the booths and stalls of handmade goods. This particular _nér_, the one at my feet, had moved out from behind a stand lined with racks of sails and fishing nets, a small knife, suitable perhaps for cleaning a fish, drawn.

_Here one moment, gone the next- like Curvo, like Carnistir, like Tyelkormo. _He is handsome, I suppose, with beautiful blue eyes that stare up at me still. There is a ring on his finger. Will his family ever find his body, ever bury him, or will he simply disappear from their lives, never seen again? Will they await a homecoming that will never occur?

_What am I doing here_? Sensing someone behind me, I whirl around, to see a man, appearing- strangely- of Noldorin descent, with a bow in hand; even now he reaches behind him to draw and nock an arrow. Mindlessly, I swipe at him; he tries to beat off the steel of my weapon with the flimsy wood of the bow, with little success. I stab him in the heart, blood splashing out on me as I withdraw the blade, too warm for comfort on an early autumn day like this, especially by the sea. I turn away from both of the corpses and make my listless way down the center of the avenue, awaiting confrontation by the Havens' residents.

I realize the answer to my question: I am surviving. I at least am of the firm opinion that I do not kill without need, unprovoked. A party of terrified persons approaches, running down the middle of the street and directly into my course of ambulation, a woman, an adolescent girl, and two young children, one male, one female.

They travel directly into the path of my sword; the single motion it takes to end the lives of the taller two women can hardly even be named of my own volition. The toddlers split, screaming their sobs; one runs left, the other right, and I lack the energy to pursue them. I am sure they, too, will meet their deaths before the day is ended. _Will not we all?_

I felt little fear before this battle, the apprehension and dread of death barely crossing my mind until the present realization of my bravery- or forgetfulness- calls to mind their absence. Today reminds me of Alqualondë, and not merely because we are killing by the sea. The sense of invincibility has returned, the detached knowledge that I am taking lives, yet accompanied by the idea that my own existence is kept under lock and key, in a vault deep and adamant.

Pityo's ruthless order, gravely affirmed by Maitimo, reverberates within my mind: "_Kill all in your path, sparing not a one. Ask not of the Silmaril, but seek only- and kill; it will be much more easily found in a village of corpses_." Is my reactive behaviour obedient to the command? It certainly does not seem thus; something about my fighting strategy must change in order to comply.

_But how_? How can I do such a thing, abandon all ruth, all matters of conscience, when I feel no threat here? At Menegroth, it was paranoia; it was fear; it was a nagging circle of ferocious voices that left me two options: to kill or to die. Whether at an arrow's point, or a child's dagger; a soldier's axe or the sword of the very king, Death seemed lurking around every twist in those abysmal tunnels. Not so today.

I have come to an intersection in the market: another stone street cuts through it, the sides of which are occupied by what looks like two endless rows, opposite one another, of small, wooden houses. Flames spring up from a few on the left, and I know our people to be present: There is no surer way to kill than catching a building on fire. Those capable of fleeing the engulfed structures run only into our bloody hands.

And find- _alas_?- no mercy. I feel no threat from these civilians; there is no skewed justice to be coaxed from claims of self-defense. But I must do as I have been ordered. How? _How_? Don't think about it.

_How not_? Something else-anything else. My thoughts race like a flock of scattered birds, dipping and diving in a hundred directions, until at last one latches onto the lay. _Sing_. Inside, where few can hear me.  
>I sing.<p>

_A! The Trees of Light, tall and shapely,_  
><em>gold and silver, more glorious than the sun<em>*****

I take the turn left, apprehensive to make an attempt at beginning the right side alone and assuming that the soldiers are making their way toward it anyway.

_than the moon more magical, o'er the meads of the Gods  
>their fragrant frith and flowerladen<br>gardens gleaming, once gladly shone._

I join the men as three more homes burst into flame, and their residents flee screaming out into the road. Now, it appears that people are running stupidly even from houses not yet burning. _Not yet._

_In death they are darkened, they drop their leaves_

This is obedience; this is what we have come to do.  
>I slay.<p>

_from blackened branches bled by Morgoth  
>and Ungoliant the grim, the Gloomweaver.<em>

I know not how many _hröar, _nor of whom, fall upon contact with my now-crimson blade; _is it best that way_?

_In spider's form despair and shadow  
>a shuddering fear and shapeless night<br>she weaves in a web of winding venom  
>that is black and breathless. Their branches fail,<br>the light and laughter of their leaves are quenched._

I continue in my duty, mechanized and absentminded, much in the fashion of the first intentions of my stroll through the market. Watching houses ignite, houses become engulfed, and houses collapse; watching people scream, people fall, people bleed, and people die, the time drags on infinitely.

_Mirk goes marching, mists of blackness,  
>through the halls of the Mighty, hushed and empty,<br>the gates of the Gods are in gloom mantled._

Before one's limbs become fully numb, the nerves begin to die- but until the pain of their freezing is no longer tangible, the anguish of the cold becomes greater and greater. Those same appendages are seized with agony unbearable, stronger, stronger, stronger, until it is to be thought that the body begins to break apart already; it is but the proof, however, that the processes of freezing are only just commencing. But just when the pain seems most terrible, when one thinks he can bear it no longer, it suddenly stops, replaced by a cold nothingness that cannot even be felt. Never mind that afterwards the body truly starts to die, to literally fall apart if one lingers in the cold for a truly long period of time. So Findekáno once told me about the Grinding Ice; so Findekáno once described to me his role at Alqualondë. _Today_, _I am numb._

_Lo! the Elves murmur mourning in anguish,  
>but no more shall be kindled the mirth of-<em>

The sound of my sword for once clashing with another blade recalls my senses to life. Instinctually, I initiate the fencing dance I know so well, eyes on my opponent's weapon alone, completely focused on delivering him into the keeping of Námo. But when I look up, meeting my adversary's gaze at last, I am nearly shocked out of my fighting state.

"Seregil, what are you doing? It's me!" The frantic words escape my lips with the sudden recollection of this soldier's skill with a sword.

"I do not ask you to fight me, lady." The weapons clang against one another; he pushes mine down, but I slip it out from beneath, swinging it until the blades kiss once more between us. "But I recognized my cousin Mithwen only just in time to save her life."

I make a jab at his chest, but he blocks it with a swift parry. "You are then betraying your lord?" I hope the question will return him to his senses, and, more importantly, keep me alive. I know that the bonds of family are strong, but do they not call this _Kin_slaying because all the Eldar are considered such?

"If betrayal is the name you give to this my redemption, then, yes- and with pride," returns Seregil. I am glad for the excuse of looking at his sword; I do not want to meet his eyes.

"We have been betrayed before, Seregil," I counter as our blades ring twice in a row. "You were there on that day, and you know what happened to the traitors. Of the sons of Ulfang, how many returned from the Nirnaeth?" I dodge his slash toward my neck.

"You compare me with the accursed Easterlings, in league with Morgoth?" I seemed to have offended, no- angered him with the assertion, if the violence with which he makes a near-successful thrust at my chest is any evidence.

"All traitors and betrayals are one to the house of Fëanor," I reply, and realize as the words come out of my mouth what I am really doing: I have thus become the scourge of my husband, intent on killing this disloyal one for his crimes against our house; no formal execution is to be had, merely the sharp, red point of my sword as wages for his evil.

"And all the house of Fëanor is now one to me: Kinslayers and robbers." I find myself no longer on the offensive of our duel, just barely managing to block and dodge his swings and jabs: Seregil- once my own soldier- is going to kill me.

"Keep that arrogance out of your tone, snake," I answer, tone almost venomous. "You were at Doriath; as for the redemption you speak of, it is far too late for you. Remember what you are-" I take a gasp of breath, managing to keep his blade from puncturing my breastplate. "A murderer," I finish.

"It is never too late for anyone," he says severely, pressing down on my sword so heavily that I cannot slide it out of his grasp as I did before. He moves it up in a flash of motion, aiming for my neck. "Except you."

A thought flits vaguely across my mind that decapitation is a most undignified way to perish, but even as my pride worries itself in the back of my consciousness, I realize that en route to my throat Seregil's blade has been met by another. I turn to my right, and there stands Makalaurë, sword meeting the unfaithful soldier's. Behind the men, I notice a woman, silver-haired, with tears in her eyes; I was aiming for her before being interrupted by Seregil: Mithwen, I am sure.

By complete mistake, I meet her eyes: kind eyes, sad eyes, frightened eyes that glimmer with impatient tears. There is no malice in them, no futile wrath at we who have brought ruin on her home, only terror- terror and grief. She means me no harm; I cannot, cannot bring myself to slay another such a one. _I am not so numb as that_. I sheathe my sword, the ring it makes against the scabbard scarcely audible.

For a split second, the _nís_'s gaze is torn three ways: between me, between Seregil, and between escape. "Go." My voice is dead. Her eyes flit once more toward her cousin, grief etched on her features. "_Go_!" She disappears into the fray and risks no backward glance.

With a sigh, I glance at Seregil, whose last words are inaudible as Makalaurë jerks a sword across his neck. "Thank you," I say, bowing my head.

"It seems I arrived only just in time," my brother-in-law replies, silent for a moment before continuing, "though that man is not the only such case among our troops."

"Have we dealt with all of them this way?" I say, glancing at the battle around us only to see several pairs of dueling troops, both of whose members are arrayed in Fëanorian armour. _Is this what happens when everything falls apart?_

"Unfortunately." Makalaurë sighs. "In their position I would probably be doing just the same- but it seems somehow ironic that their first moral decision in three decades will be the one that kills them." A brief and grim smile twists his lips upward.

The response surprises me, though from the merciful bard it really should not. "Ironic, indeed." I chuckle mirthlessly. "Though betraying your sworn lord can hardly be called a righteous act, regardless of how his commands sit with your conscience."

Makalaurë replicates my short laugh, though a study of his features reveals conflict and anguish engraved upon them. "More of our men should have your outlook, Rányë: it would render the army far easir to command."

"Thank you," I reply, smiling almost genuinely. Such an affirmation from him is all I need as motivation to continue carrying out orders as I have been all morning.

With that notion, it registers with me that Vása rides now high aloft, beating down directly upon us from her throne above; a glance upward reveals a sky cloudless and azure, set with the gem of the sun amid an autumnal haze. We have been fighting since she rose early this morning, and still it seems that the Silmaril has not been claimed. That is a topic Makalaurë will certainly be familiar with; I address him again. "Has the Jewel been found?" I inquire, hardly daring to hope that his answer will be 'yes'.

He shakes his head sadly, even the feeblest semblance of joy now completely fled from his countenance. "Not yet," he replies, then appears to brighten slightly upon changing the subject. "But that is exactly what brought me down to this area in the first place. We have sufficiently destroy- scoured this area, says Maitimo, so I was sent to gather the men to begin working toward the quays and a different residential area nearer the ocean, where we are led to believe the lord and lady dwell."

"And the general consensus is that the Silmaril is there?"

"It had better be," responds Makalaurë, softly and gravely. "Come with me; there are still many men to gather."

I follow him in silence, keeping my sword drawn as we walk down the residential avenue to collect more soldiers. In a perfect world, we would have had enough men to completely occupy this entire place, dispersing them to surround Siriombar's every street, harbour, building, man, woman, and child- but in a perfect world we would not have to be making this attack at all; in a perfect world we would still be in Aman beneath the holy light of Laurelin and Telperion.

However, the world is hideously, incorrigibly marred, leaving the Trees of Valinor as rotting carcasses, the Oath to mandate an attack on our own kin, and my husband and his brothers without even enough soldiers to do so ideally.

I find myself surveying the cobblestone pavement, picking out mires of blood, both standing and absorbed into the surface of the street. I try not to make eye contact with the vacant _hröar _lying among them, gazing instead at the charred remains of houses on opposing sides of the avenue.

Many fires still burn, but others have been extinguished, whether by water or time it matters little. In the doorway of one home, I see a woman lying facedown on the stone, seeming unharmed until I notice the blackened stubs her legs have been reduced to- but I must commend her: she was so close to escaping.

So close, but yet so far. _Is not that the anthem of this house?_

***This lovely poem assuredly does not belong to me! It's Tolkien's "The Flight of the Noldoli From Valinor", as found in ****_The Lays of Beleriand_****. Let me not be struck dead for the use of it as an element of elvish culture?**

**Also, a thousand thanks to my beta, Sauron Gorthaur, for her help in revising this chapter (and all of those before it)! Her tolerance for drafts upon drafts is infinitely appreciated. :)**


	12. Slaughter

Slaughter

_"Your mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity."  
>-Banksy, "Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall"<em>

Faces, faces, there are infinite- _faces_. These begging not for mercy, these not terrified but wrathful, these are clearly the soldiers of Siriombar, such a military as this refugee kingdom by the sea can produce or maintain. They seemingly defend the harbour for the same reason that we are now attacking it: escape can be had by means of ship-for the people, for the Silmaril.

This is not the first time I have fought upon a dock, casting fallen adversaries into the voracious jaws of the sea below, watching the plumes of waves transform from argent to scarlet as they foam with the blood of Elf slain by Elf.

Three grey ships, Telerin swans borne upon their prows, lie anchored at these docks; we know of no vessels having departed since the invasion began.

On such narrow fighting ground as this- rickety wooden planks that span but a few feet across- there is little room for error, if one wishes to remain dry, or at least to die upon land. I find myself blade to blade with a _nér_ clearly of Telerin descent, most likely Sindarin. (I can deduce the latter from the loathing in his eyes.) The clanging of our swords against one another is little muffled even by the crashing of waves against the great cliffs behind the quays.

I defeat him easily- perhaps he was trained for woodland warfare with a bow. _A bow_. The notion strikes me suddenly, and I whirl around, ears ringing with the twang of bowstrings I am certain sing in the hands of warriors somewhere above, lining the rocky ridge, unassailable. _An arrow in the back_. It will penetrate my heart before I know I am dying. Fear seizes me; I whirl around.

My eyes scan the cliffs. Their tall ashen faces frown upon the wharf and surrounding sea even in the September sunshine. No archers are to be found; _then whence comes the sound of bowstrings_? A glance around the harbour reveals swords alone as instruments of swift death, but the clash of them is overwhelmed by the unnerving song of a rain of darts upon battle.

Like Alqualondë, by the sea; like Doriath, a hail of fine-pointed death; the invasion of Siriombar seems to combine the worst of every Kinslaying before it, mingling them together in a nightmare unrivaled by those of sleep. Another adversary approaches me, and my sword engages his. A few deft parries are exchanged before a jab to the heart sends him into the water below.

The singing of bows is suddenly matched by the whine of arrows; facing the cliffs, I wonder if they come instead from the sea itself. Another glance behind me, though, reveals nothing but the sound, growing ever louder. If the sound is not real, or at least not affecting me, some twisted rationale within me almost wishes it was: anything is better than this terrible not knowing, the gripping fear that, though there were none behind me when last I looked, there may be now.

_Focus_. If there are no arrows, the only cause for fear is the warriors whose sole object is my death. _I will di_e. We are outnumbered here; I will die. _Yes_- no!

"_Be wary_," warns a voice, kind but severe, fatherly almost. "They will kill you." _Father_? I have not spoken to the man since Alqualondë, the night he boarded the ship, gratefully or tragically not mine, that would be sunken in the wrath of Ossë and Uinen, dragging with it to the depths a full crew of talented swordsmen, my father one- in command- of them.

"_Wary_?" scoffs another. "_This woman- wary? Her lack of conscientiousness is pathetic; it's really a marvel she remains alive._"

"_She remains alive_?" Another tongue joins the discussion- with me? Of me? "_Since when? I thought Ránenel of Tirion died ages ago and we had moved on. Tell me not that she yet lives._"

What are they saying? _What are they saying_? My sword collides with yet another of the defensive soldiers; a slice to the throat seals his fate. That action was wary; I am wary; I have survived, and I will.

"_Of Tirion_?" counters the first tone; its quiet graveness is more frightening than the harsh criticism of the other two. "_This monster once hailed from Tirion? I spoke to Rániel of Himring, warrior, murderess._"

"Murderess?" I reply aloud, shocked to hear the word from this unseen mouth. "Only orders- I do as I am commanded." I can barely make out my own voice among the cries of battle, clashing of weapons, and beating of the sea against the rocky cliffs. I suppose they cannot hear me, either: My response is completely ignored.

"_A monster among monsters, dwelling in their lair, feeding on the blood they spill, that is what she is- feeble and weak among those far stronger, a mere parasite._" The second voice is caustic, angering, perhaps, but only as genuinely offensive as the truth it speaks.

_"Silence! Do you not realize she can hear you? Do you seek to drive her mad with fear of herself_?" As I begin the dance of battle once again, I wonder if this is the fatherly tongue's demented means of defending me. _How kind of it to do so_, I muse.

The two cruel voices laugh in unison, a terrible cacophony so great in volume that it sets my ears to ringing. My lips tremble with a suppressed cry of pain; I but clench my sword more tightly.

"_No, this creature is not mad_," the third voice finally replies, appearing to regain some semblance of its composure while its fellow remains in an agonizing fit of hysteria. "_Not yet_."

"_But she will be_?" The first tone sounds veritably pained to speak the words.

"_Is she not_?" chorus the other two as the laughter dies away completely. "_Is she not? Is she not_?" The last reverberations of the question fade slowly, chasing one another into a silence that I sense leaves only the kindest voice behind.

A sensation of pain recalls me to my surroundings. Blood seeps out from a cut to my right wrist; I bite back a scream of horror. The man who delivered the wound falls by the sword of a Fëanorian soldier. I step over his body, compelled once more to pro-activity by the insults of the second tongue. No parasite goes hunting for prey more than once; it remains where it has positioned itself, stubbornly, until it or its host has died.

_Foolish creature_. By seeking sustenance it murders its sustainer. What does it plan to do once it has slain its provider? Die itself, I suppose, and painfully; its life is worthless without the provision of the host.

But I am not such. If I am a parasite, clinging to my husband and his kin immovably, then I am a harmless one. I may die with my host, but I shall not be the cause of its death. As the voice said, I am weak and feeble; I am incapable of such a feat. I am worthless, that I know fully, with or without my fated hosts, so I might as well remain with them than without them. What is wrong with remaining in a place where safety is more certain?

"_Be wary,_" repeats the voice. "_They will kill you_." The simple warning pulls me out of the recesses of my own mind, and away from the absurdity I now realize is an attempt at reconciling why I remain alongside my own family- all because of the provoking insult of a disembodied voice. But I am not safe, not here, not now.

_Proactive_. I remind myself of the new goal, but I am given no opportunity to put it into play before I am approached once more by a warrior, death in his stormy eyes. My death-_my death_!

"_He hates you_," advises the voice. "_He saw you from the moment this party approached the quays, and he has been waiting since then for the opportunity to strike_."

"Why? Why does he feel so?" I murmur, even as my blade meets his. "Did I wrong him?"

A delighted laugh escapes that unseen mouth. "_I should think so_!" it exclaims. "_You slew his mother in Doriath. Perhaps you failed to notice-_" It sounds as if it has begun to converse with itself for but a brief moment. "-_oh, were the others onto something after all_?" Elevating its tone, it continues, addressing me once more.

"_But he has been watching you ever since. He followed you to Ereb, ever behind you, poised with a bow in hand to deal you the death he aims to repay you for his mother's. Now, after all of these long decades, his chance has finally come._"

My first reaction is denial. Surely he would have slain me long before now, had he truly been present, but, against my better judgment, I lock eyes with him. All of the loathing I see within only confirms the voice's chilling words. My heart finds its way to my throat, and suddenly this duel is more of a fight for my life than any yet to occur on this day of death. Here is one who has long despised me, one I should long ago have learned to fear, one whose journey to Mandos has been postponed far longer than it should have been.

I will kill this man, as I killed his wench of a mother. _Perhaps she was the one to wound my face with her fingernails._.. It would not surprise me, for this her son combats with that same ferocity- yet he and his sword are deadly.

With each blow I dodge, my heart hammers but the harder; am I weakening? Will this be the jab that ends everything? When will I see no longer the cobalt sky and the turquoise sea but eternal darkness? (I feel it approaching me.)

"_Kill him! Kill him_!" cries the voice. "_Parry! Block! Remember how gladly he takes this opportunity. One of you will die- let it be him_!"

"Thank you," I whisper, genuinely grateful for its encouragement. "But, why? You are unlike the others. What drives you to care for me so?"

"_Care about you_?" How does it speak so gently with incredulity in its tone? "_Do not be mistaken, child. I only show this regard for you as it benefits me; our essences are bound. You see, I too am a parasite_."

Even as it says the last word, the word that ricochets through my mind, bouncing painfully off of my recent internal debate, I finally make the slash that gives me victory. It seems strange that, finally able to access his sword-bearing wrist, I have swiftly amputated his right hand. Fumbling for his fallen sword with the left, though a scream of anguish looses itself from him and blood pours from his wrist onto the same tattered boots that carried me to Doriath and back, he manages to grab it. He swings feebly at me with it, but, unsurprisingly, the motion is harmless.

At any rate, I have already thrust my blade through his abdomen, twisting it cruelly as I withdraw it. Just before letting him topple backwards into the mortuary of floating bodies the surrounding water has become, I hiss, "Join your mother." Death freezes an inexplicable mask of confusion onto his face.

"_Well done,"_ asserts the voice, bearing with the words an audible smile. "_Vigilant in the end, you saved us. For that I must thank you._"

Us? I recognize no bond to this detached entity; it holds not with me! _A parasite_. Am I infected myself? With my left hand, I reach up, feeling the skin of my face, my neck- I will scour my arms and legs when next I am able- for symptoms of a creature upon me.

Finding none for now, I glance around the quay, and see only Fëanorian soldiers standing; I am not surprised. Scattered across the dock's wooden beams are a multitude of corpses, but not anywhere near as many as fill the sea around it.

Even at Alqualondë the ocean served as a final resting place of nowhere near as many _hröar_, at least that I saw, but there were streets at the Swanhaven, and many were slain thereupon. Blood is everywhere, the wood, the other men, the bodies, my clothing, my hands- even my face, I note as I reach up, now to wipe away perspiration. At Doriath, I would have been delighted by the red liquid's warmth, but the warm outer temperature makes its thermal stickiness only a discomfort.

I lay eyes on Makalaurë, who is slowly walking from the furthest end of the dock down to where it begins beneath the cliffside. He sheathes his sword, and with a hand-motion commands every soldier still living to come as near to him as he may. There are roughly sixty of us remaining of the one hundred he had ordered to come here rather than progress to the rest of the town.

"Half of you will remain here as guards against an escape by sea," he says authoritatively. "The other group will come with me up the cliff to... search further." I smile grimly; "search" sounds so much kinder than _slaughter_.

I, of course, elect to follow him. I have not seen Maitimo since our arrival this morning, and that notion worries me terribly- irrationally, perhaps, but terribly. I sheathe my sword- what else but temporarily?- and, vaguely aware of my parasitism in doing so, walk beside Makalaurë to the stairs carved into the cliff. Perhaps it is a trick of blood and sweat, but do I see tears on his face?


	13. The Devil

The Devil

_"When you walk to the edge of all the light you have, and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or you will be taught to fly."_

_-Patrick Overton, "The Leaning Tree"_

It was not difficult to find the home of the Lord of Siriombar. An elegant structure hewn of white stone, it stands at the settlement's highest point; a turret on its roof must serve as a beacon for ships at sea. It is a fairly immense structure, "_especially for impoverished exiles_," Makalaurë remarked upon our approaching it.

Built upon a sharp promontory, its front portico must be the only exit providing aught but a sheer drop into the rock-pierced ocean below. From a distance, it appeared tranquil, a polar contrast of strange serenity against the burning village around it, but now, setting foot beneath the pillars that pin its porch's rooftop to the sky, I see that it has already been infiltrated.

A pair of white doors hang twisted on their hinges, protruding like tongues from the house's dead mouth. Talk, though, resounds from within them, as opposed to the din of battle; are any even present to fight us? I scarcely keep my heart from leaping at the thought of the house and its contents unguarded.

"It seems Maitimo has been efficient," comments Makalaurë, then raises his voice to address his men. "I need twelve to guard these doors. The rest, await orders once we have entered." He does not hesitate to walk in.

Crossing the threshold of what I pray will be the last stage of both this battle and this age-long quest for the Silmaril, I find myself in a high-ceilinged foyer, brightly lit by the sunlight that streams in from many windows high in the walls. I see no residents of the house, but I assume that is to be expected in such straits as these.

My husband's hair, set afire as it reflects the sunbeams, catches my eye before he does; I follow Makalaurë to his side.

"I've secured the portico." My brother-in-law's greeting is dry. "Is the search long begun?"

Maitimo turns to face him, and when he does I avert my gaze. I cannot bear to see his eyes this way, their silver shot with red like bloodied armour, fierce, wrathful, desperate, wild. Those eyes could tear one to pieces.

"No," is my husband's quiet answer. "I have not been here long myself; I thought it best to await you."

"Why?" demands his brother. "Russandol, what is wrong? Telvo and Pityo were to arrive before either of us; did they not start?" Silence meets him, yet he persists, and for all his apparent annoyance, the fear that now frosts his voice is contagious. "Where are they, Russandol?"

"Let us pray in the keeping of Námo."

Tears suddenly blur the sight of my boots; the wound on my wrist begins to throb. I lift filthy hands to cover my mouth and nose as I feel my gaze dragged upward.

"No." I hear Makalaurë's breath catch in his throat. "No."

"For now," answers Maitimo gently, voice thick with emotion, "we can do nothing save avenge them." He places his hand on my shoulder as he positions himself to call the troops' attention. "Ready your sword," he whispers. Nodding, I rub the tears from my eyes; I know they will be safe for later.

"Take groups of no fewer than four," Maitimo is ordering. "Scour the whole house for the Jewel and leave guards at every door- as we did at Menegroth. Maglor, Aeranor, Rániel, come with me." The troops immediately disperse, and I find myself beside my husband as our party ascends a set of stairs leading onto a landing overlooking the capacious atrium from the house's left: seaside. A corridor extends behind it, lined with four doors on either side. A group that has followed ours takes the left, and we the right.

A clamour of screams can already be heard, rising faintly from some zone of the house below, as we enter the first room, swords drawn. My one active thought concerning it is that it is- or was- a nursery. The chamber is surprisingly small for such, and the haphazard mess of toys and children's clothes upon the floor, the unmade beds, and toppled plates of food make it look as though it was ransacked even before our arrival. I glance quizzically at Maitimo.

"A hurried evacuation, I am sure," he replies, already frantically yanking open furniture-drawers in fruitless quest of the Silmaril. Even as he does so, he acknowledges the futility of his effort, "None of these people would leave that Jewel unguarded. This is useless."

"I know," answers Makalaurë, throwing open a closet door and surveying its contents, "but it was you who commanded us to be thorough."

"I do not revoke that command," asserts Maitimo severely. "The Valar would have it that the one drawer we leave unopened, the one article of furniture we leave unturned, will be the one which hides the Silmaril."

With a nod at one another, Aeranor and I take opposite ends of a bed and flip it over. Underneath it is nothing but a clearly well-loved stuffed... something; the other reveals nothing but stone floor. Soon, the room has been completely torn apart, and we progress to the next, finding it an office of some sort.

Three wooden model ships rest on a table to the left, the back wall is lined with full bookshelves, and an orderly desk sits in the center of the floor on top of a rug decorated with wavelike designs which, at least for a moment, appear to be moving. The search of the room is brief and fruitless, as is that of its neighbour: a room empty but for sunbeams bouncing off the ivory floor.

The fourth chamber, and last in the hallway, we do not bother with searching, for it possesses one incredibly hopeful trait: an open door, swinging in the ocean wind. It allows in both the crashing of the waves and the cacophony of the battle behind the house, and an unspoken consensus is drawn that someone- perhaps with the Silmaril- may be hiding outside of it.

Maitimo and Makalaurë run now, swiftly followed by Aeranor and myself; the soldier and I stop, frozen in our wary steps, upon emerging into the free air. The door lets out onto a precipitous cliff, one of the stony faces overlooking the sea; several yards from its edge stands a woman.

Her hair is long and black, flying loose to whip against her face in the breeze. A light of hatred, wrath, and terror- all meshed into one- shines in bloodshot eyes set in a tear-stained face. But in her hands is the more commanding sight; in her hands is what makes me cry out in joy; in her hands is the Silmaril, as aglow with Treelight, as dazzling in its luminescence, as intricate in its carving, and as innocent and holy and pure as on the day I first beheld it in my father-in-law's workshop alongside its sisters.

_Take it_! I lunge instinctually towards it, but stop as my husband and his last brother draw their swords. For all my attachment, this is their Jewel, their Oath, their battle. Aeranor seems of the same opinion, for he stands stiff beside me, eyes locked on the confrontation at hand. The woman- Elwing Dior's brat, I assume, immediately begins backing toward the ledge. _What is she doing_? Maitimo and Makalaurë will certainly kill her regardless of location, but there she has nowhere even to run.

Wordlessly, with the closest I have seen to mirth in countless years in his eyes, Maitimo jabs at her chest, but she dodges the blow, instead running further out onto the promontory, Fëanorians close behind. Reaching its end, she finally stops. And then she does what I refuse to believe.

So intent over the years on the Jewel itself, I had forgotten its new setting: the Nauglamír of Finrod. How he flaunted that ridiculous carcanet, once upon a time, and now I curse him that ever it was made, for Elwing clasps the ornate chain tightly in her hand with an arm out over the edge of the cliff. The Silmaril- the _Silmaril_ hangs hundreds of feet above the sea, to be lost forever at the whim of this _peredhel_ wench.

Makalaurë extends his left hand. "Give that to me," is his simple command, spoken with anger rarely to be heard in that melodious voice, "and you will keep your life."

Elwing snorts. "And I am to believe Kinslayers such as you will allow me to live even then? Your reputation precedes you, lords; I know my death when I see it."

"But as you also should know by now, we are men of our word- adherently so." Maitimo's voice is something close to a snarl. "Give my brother the Silmaril, and I swear that you will live. We will depart from this little realm, and leave your people be."

"You _swear_ it?" How mocking her tone is- she speaks as a victor. "Is that not a bit of a dangerous thing for such as you to do?"

"Silence, half-elf!" bellows Makalaurë. "Choose your fate. Every moment you tarry slays more of your folk. Give us the Silmaril, and spare them and yourself. Our designs were to kill until we laid hands on the Jewel; we swear to stop the moment we do."

"I find it difficult to believe anything would stop you from killing, and I will not reward such monsters as you for your crimes." All fear is suddenly gone from her eyes, leaving only a fey light of hatred and fury to match her venomous words. "I would rather die than live with the guilt of having saved your black souls." Her feet are so close to the edge; no space is present between them and a drop into the sea below.

And then they are gone. The Silmaril is gone, dragging with it to the depths any hope of salvation for my husband and his brothers. Maitimo, perhaps on a first instinct, but perhaps fully conscious of what will follow his action, runs after her; I scream. But Makalaurë instantly holds out his sword-arm, blocking his brother's path as a look of grave acceptance comes into his eyes. Maitimo stops, and his younger brother sheathes his sword grimly.

Far above us, gulls shriek the laughter of the Valar. _Everlasting Darkness_. I grip the doorpost until my knuckles wax pale, letting tears clean my filthy countenance. I can scarcely make out the two forlorn figures looking down into the fathomless ocean. _Everlasting Darkness._

"_Go to him_!" shrieks a voice. "_You only have so much longer before the Oath catches up with him at last_."

"_Refrain_!" counters a second. "_The demands of a parasite will bring him no comfort._"

"_There she stands_," comments another matter-of-factly, "_weeping like a little child. A warrior reduced to this by the suicide of one she loathed- strange. But Maitimo is damned for certain now, isn't he? I am not sorry._"

I only whimper in reply, trying my best to ignore them and to focus on Maitimo and Makalaurë walking towards Aeranor and myself at the door. They arrive within seconds, and I find there are no words to be said. Maitimo pauses once inside the room and sheathes his sword; I merely place a hand on his shoulder, and my eyes meet his. I have a feeling that our two sets look for once very similar: as silver wells of unshed tears. But he has not permitted his to fall, instead swallowing visibly in a successful attempt at composure.

I bow my head, whether for shame at my own weeping when he remains so strong, or for inability to look any longer upon his anguish, I know not- perhaps both. We make our silent way down the corridor once more; it is now vacant, seeming that the men searching there for the Silmaril have given up and moved on to the rest of the house. We end up on the landing, overlooking a swarm of troops in the foyer.

Maitimo clears his throat. "We depart," he cries over the din of voices and clang of a few swords as they are sheathed or exposed, commanding attention as silence falls. "The Silmaril is lost; it is over."

The troops immediately begin to make for the door, chiefly without words, and Maitimo steps away from the railing to descend the staircase. Makalaurë walks beside him now, myself and Aeranor- who seems to have been struck as shocked and quiet as I- falling behind. As I still descend the bottom few stairs, and the brothers set foot on the floor, two young boys, dark of hair, dart out in front of them.

One of our soldiers is hot on their heels, blade in hand, and as the children pass in front of Maitimo, slowing slightly, perhaps knowing themselves momentarily in the lead, he swiftly draws his sword again and makes to swing at them. The blow is directly in line for the first one's neck- I note that they are identical- and something within me is satisfied. If these children are Elwing's, this will be the least revenge he can take.

But Makalaurë, in a blur of black hair and bloodied silver mail, leaps, to my disbelief, between the boys and the blade. Maitimo meets his eyes in surprise and wrath. "What are you doing, Makalaurë?" he hisses.

The children appear rooted to the ground, at first in awe and fear, now out of lack of option, for they have been surrounded on all sides by our men. "Russandol," replies Makalaurë, voice thick with emotion, "they are only children." He lowers his voice to a whisper. "And would you do further evil by killing without even the excuse of the Oath?"

Maitimo, in seeming apathy, sheathes his sword and gestures for the troops to do likewise. Makalaurë approaches the boys, holding out a bloodied hand to each of them. "Come with me," he coaxes softly, and I find myself wondering how he could smile at a time like this one. "I will keep you safe."


	14. Ghosts

Ghosts

_"To think that the specter you see is an illusion does not rob him of his terrors: it simply adds the terror of madness itself- and then on top of that the horrible surmise that those whom the rest call mad have, all along, been the only people who see the world as it really is."_

_-C.S. Lewis, Perelandra_

A chilly November breeze sighs its way in through the open window. Why is the window open? Oh, yes, I opened it myself last night, thinking to let in a bit of fresh air- fresh, apparently, from the frigid North. I shiver from my position on the neatly-made bed, hugging my knees to my chest inside the loose, white garment I have lacked the motivation to take off for the past three days.

I bow my head, and a lock of hair falls into my face; I do not trouble with brushing it aside, staring instead at my pale, bony toes peeping out from beneath the robe's hem. Another gust blows in, this stronger than those before it, reaching all the way to ruffle my hair. It bears with it a lone leaf, its crimson hue half-faded to the brown of winter. I catch it in mid-air, clamping cold fingers around it to catch and examine it.

Upon closer observation, I see that its prominent veins have long ago yellowed, and I trace the structure of its finger-like lobes. Cut off from its bearer, it has died- like a parasite- no! It wants to be free; it may be dead, but at least it is now free to roam where it wills, no longer bound by the hold of a tree. I keep it from the path it wishes to take.

What I previously could not find the effort to do, I now perform with ease: a leap down from the bed and toward the window. The sudden contact of my feet with the stone of the floor sends at first a tingling tremor of pain through them, but it quickly subsides as I walk to the window, still carrying the leaf. Slowly, ceremoniously, I extend my arm out into the free air, and the leaf is quickly lifted from my hand, liberated to continue on its final- its only- adventure.

"Farewell," I whisper, watching it float away into the distance of an ashen sky. Drawing the hand back indoors, I see now no reason not to close the window, so, understandably, I do. The room immediately feels warmer without the constant influx of cold air, and I smile out onto the breezy day. It is much better enjoyed through the glass, but for only a few moments do I watch other leaves fly past, some abandoning their branches, before turning back around to resume my listless sitting on the bed.

"Oh!" I exclaim upon seeing my brother-in-law; how thoughtful of him to drop in for a visit! A smile curls its way onto my features for the first time in weeks. "Curvo! What brings you in to see me?"

But he ignores me- at least for the moment- turning instead to Tyelkormo, whom I now see is standing behind him. "Does she not know?" he murmurs to his elder brother.

"Why we are here?" returns Tyelkormo. "She ought."

I ought? But I am lost as to the reason behind the appearance of my two long-dead brothers-in-law in my bedroom. Long-dead? But they clearly must not be; how else would they be able to come here? I make a study of their faces and forms: solid, full of colour, clearly hröar. I must have been mistaken.

I swallow hard, for some reason afraid to voice the fact that I, shamefully, cannot fathom why both of them would take the time out of their day to pay me a specific visit. "But I do not," I reply. "Is it simply that today is too cold for a hunt- or are you on your way to the stables to go out on one anyway?"

The simultaneous responses come from Ambarussa, whose presence I did not before notice. "Both," says Pityo, but Telvo for once counters him, declaring, "Neither," instead.

"Which is it?" I demand, eyes darting to and fro across the four- five- I smile at Carnistir-néri before me. "Take no offense, but this behaviour is somewhat out of the usual. Am I delighted to see you? Of course! But, really, I should like to know whether this is causeless."

The reply is Tyelkormo's, and with a teasing smile. "Need we a cause to drop in on our dear brother's wife?"

"I suppose not," I return, both flattered and embarrassed, glancing smiling at my feet.

"But we do," puts in Carnistir, locking eyes with Curvo. "Do we not?"

"Then what is it?" I reply.

Another contradictory- though simultaneous- answer is to be had from Ambarussa: Telvo's "The Silmaril," is harmonized with Pityo's, "Just to see you."

"Thank you!" I say to Pityo; I would much rather receive guests on account of affection than a cursed Jewel, so I will treat their visit in regards to the latter.

"You should certainly be grateful for our coming," replies Curvo severely. "We are here to warn you." To my brow, furrowed in confusion, he adds, "To see you, yes- to see you in order to warn you about the Silmaril."

Before I can respond, Tyelkormo elaborates, eyes gleaming. "We felt that we should tell you where it is, that it was only right to advise you in taking the proper course to guard against it."

"But," I answer slowly, "I thought it was cast into the oc-"

"The ocean!" Carnistir scoffs. "Rányë, don't be ridiculous. Everyone here can see that the Silmaril is-"

"Right behind you," states Pityo. "Right in front of you," is Telvo's assertion. _Another maddening contradiction_. I whip around almost frantically, scouring the floor and the window-sill for the Jewel, to no avail.

I look back up at my guests, shake my head morosely. "It is not here," I say helplessly, eyes suddenly drawn to Pityo's left hand. It shakes, more than trembles-he shakes it, with speed to transfigure it into a pallid blur, stained red, it seems, with blood. I watch, mesmerized.

"Of course not!" Tyelkormo's voice is somehow green. "Think what a simple life that would be."

Curvo laughs like hail on the rooftop. "We were never fated for such a thing; ours is a higher doom."

"And each day we bear its weight."

"Wise, Carnistir," I murmur, disengaged. Pityo's hand is still in motion, beating against the air like the wing of a caged bird. What strength of wrist he has, what endurance...

"What weight?" The voice is Telvo's.

"Do you not feel it crushing you?" Carnistir all but spits the words in my ear. "I suffocate beneath it, the burden of the damned."

"Of the elect." Curvo's upbraiding voice is far from here.

"Elected for what?" scoffs Tyelkormo. "Suffering? _Darkness_?" -His voice grows louder with every word.- "**Death?**"

What mighty sinews, that flit to and fro so lightly, so freely, so long. The salmon haze of Pityo's shaking hand is all I see.

"Tyelko, Tyelko-" I hear the smirk in Curvo's voice and wrest my eyes from the jittering appendage. "-such despair will lead you to the Void. Must your reality ever wear such a grotesque face?"

"What have we besides reality?"

Curvo smiles in reply- not a smirk but a genuine smile- and says simply, "Madness, Tyelkormo, madness and falsehood."

"Two such traits as you have always seemed apt to," mutters the hunter.

"And what, may I ask, is so terrible about either?" returns Curvo, still smiling.

But Tyelkormo is not given the chance to respond, for at that moment, I gasp, noticing for the first time what I should have at the moment of the brothers' appearance. "Curvo," I murmur, "you're bleeding." From what must be a rent beneath his garment, a blossom of crimson is forming steadily upon his chest, soaking through grey cloth to make itself terribly obvious. How could I have failed to notice?

He turns to me, steely eyes piercingly engaged. "Am I?" he says placidly.

"Yes!" I reply vehemently. "Can you not see it? Can you not feel it? It's soaking through your clothes, spreading only the more quickly. On your chest, Curvo- it will kill you; you must bind it."

He displays no reaction to my words, instead simply bearing the same old smirk, that I now want to slap from his face. I make a move to do so, but instantly withdraw my hand. _Would I strike him as he is dying?_ "Curvo," I continue, softly and desperately, "you're bleeding."

Slowly, he lifts a hand to the growing spot on the fabric, tilting his head to one side as if curious whence came the wound. Gingerly he fingers the cloth, then, finding a rent in it, his parting hands reveal a small hole, hardly more than a puncture and large enough for only the very point of an arrow, no more. He places a finger inside of it in the same investigative fashion, and withdraws the appendage- only to find it clean. He meets my eyes and responds simply, "Am I not?"

"Don't concern yourself with him, Rányë," Tyelkormo chides me. "He's been like this for years."

I swallow, look at Curvo once again. "You should be dead," I say flatly.

A savage grin etches its way onto Curvo's visage, contorting his sharp features into a sinister mask. He ignores me. "Would you like to see the wound?" He takes a silent step toward me; his brothers follow.

"No." I wring my hands so that the bones protrude, shake my head but slightly. "No." I gasp, now twisting my hands in fervent circles. "You are dead."

Though I have not seen them lift their feet, they all appear nearer, spiraling in like vultures above a corpse. Curvo's nose is at once but inches from mine- I cannot feel his breath- and I can see the wounded spot, spreading outward to dye him red. He reaches out a hand; this I feel as he touches my arm, raising goosebumps on the skin.

"Don't- d-don't touch me!" My voice breaks, and the command is to no avail. They have gathered in a semicircle around my bed; all at once reach out- and their hands lightly touch me. "Stop," I hiss futilely. "Stop." They continue in a flurry, tender fingers light as tingling feathers on my skin. "_Stop_." And they continue.

I clench my eyes shut, tighter, harder, until I imagine tears and blood should gush forth from them intermingled. Far away, I hear a woman's voice; she screams as if in torment. Shrieks of agony-she burns alive as her voice is dragged over nails, growing harsher, harsher as it is rent to shreds.

Nearly boxing my own ears, I clap my hands over them; it is to no avail. My eyes remain closed, and I know only the darkness and the screams and the gentle brush of ghastly fingers against my skin.

Let me be. The shrieks continue above the phantoms' inane whispers. Let me be, I say. Each touch pounds a spike of ice into my flesh. As if watching another, I feel my body rock back and forth, ever more rapidly, ever less usefully. Will this never end?

"Rányë, be silent!" A firm grip on my right shoulder, substantial, overwhelming the specters' gingerly touch. I swallow, open my eyes, find Maitimo's face an inch's fraction from my own.

The screams have stopped. I inhale sharply, even as tears inexplicably spring to my eyes. My hands tremble in my lap, maddened spiders caught in the light.

A conflicted shadow crosses Maitimo's visage; he parts his lips as if to speak, then shuts them again, apparently thinking better of it. He takes his hand from my shoulder, almost makes to turn away, but I feel I must explain.

"They-" I stutter, "your brothers were here." I stare down at my lap, watch my shaking fingers nervously pinch the air.

He sighs, and I begin to count the care-lines on his face. He shakes his head. "Is this madness, Rányë, or falsehood?"

"Neither," I reply desperately, my voice beginning to quaver. "Neither!" I insist.

But a tiny voice somewhere within me has the boldness to counter_,"Both."_


	15. This Monster

This Monster

_"Have I not been living in a dream? And am I not now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest of all sublunary visions?"_

_-Edgar Allan Poe, _"William Wilson"

There is a certain way to live in which life means nothing. It is how one gets by when the whole world has crumbled apart around him long ago, yet he remains amid the rubble, trying in vain to piece together the scattered shards. He knows all the time that no hope is left of their ever being put together again, but still he tries, if only to keep from going altogether mad- _altogether _because it is madness even to try.

But madness, I have been told, is the mind's oasis, the tranquil eye of reality's storm, an adamant rampart erected just when _I can do no more_. It is respite, I hear (as long as it is not torment). But I do not think we are mad yet.

My thoughts break and scatter as Maitimo seats himself beside me on the threadbare couch, bearing a glass of something burgundy (that must be wine).

"Today makes thirty years since Doriath," he states matter-of-factly, looking more at Makalaurë, who sits in the chair between our couch and a whispering fire, than at me.

"And just how far is it that we have come since then?" replies his brother, almost- _almost _wryly. Makalaurë shakes his head, smiling grimly down into his own glass. "Were this any night ere both Kinslayings had taken place, you and I, Russandol, would still be sleepless for tonight's reason. Nothing-neither of us-has changed."

"No," murmurs Maitimo in simple response, and our eyes wander to the parlour's empty seats. There are five. _Five. _And thirty winters since the Void began to snatch those who belong in them.

I avert my gaze from the gaping chairs, twist the grey fabric of my robe into a noose around my finger. _Thirty winters. _And in every way we now are less.

"Three decades past, they did not suffer in the Void." Maitimo's voice is leaden; his grip on the wine-glass grows tight. We need not ask of whom he speaks.

"Yet still they suffered," returns Makalaurë, "even as we do." He studies the deerskin that shields the floor. "At last I begin to believe that we will always suffer."

"So the Valar would have it, I suppose." And I cringe to hear my husband's voice so weary.

"Ah, the Valar!" Makalaurë's voice nears a scoff. "I tend to avoid giving them much thought."

"But what of your witnesseses?" The query stumbles from my lips ere I can break its fall. Both _néri _fix their eyes on me; sad, silver eyes that, though I've erred, bear no spark of wrath. Idly, I pinch my wrist and continue, voice low, "I am sorry. You know too well the..." And the words escape me. I pinch harder, but they do not return.

"Yes, Rányë," Maitimo answers me. "Go on, name our witnesses, as well; I am unafraid."

I shake my head, bite my lip. The skin is red between my pinching fingers.

"My sons-" _Not your sons._ "-speak often of Elbereth and the Elder King. Father would disown me as I say this, but I am grateful for the Sindarin."

"So he would, but I do not blame you." Maitimo's voice bears little emotion. "Perhaps if we neglect their names, they will forget ours?"

"If only..." I murmur downwards, moving my hands once more, this time to lace my fingers together.

Both brothers are laughing. "Ah, Rányë," says Makalaurë, through his smile, "you darken our hopes."

My brow furrows. "What hopes?"

Their mirth continues for a few seconds more ("Precisely, my dear," says Maitimo) and stops for good.

"What were we promised," Makalaurë muses, "their eternal wrath and hate? It seems the Valar too keep their word. The prophecy, the curse- each day they weigh heavier upon us, and with each evil we commit, we deserve them more."

"And to think we once would have said _none_ could deserve such punishment."

"You may have." The reply stings even me. "But I knew from the Swanhaven what we had become. What we are and always will be."

_What are we? _ Rather, what are _they_? I am the bystander, the parasite, the soldier who refuses to learn the word _no_; I am the shadow in the corner, the spiderweb's contented fly. I do not bear the Oath, cannot know the agony it inflicts.

My knuckles are rigid vertebrae along the fold of my hands. Silence has fallen in the cavernous room, and the crackling of the fire echoes to a flurry of whispered speech. Though I listen intently, the only intelligible word is _help_. I clench my eyes shut and ignore the plea.

Maitimo frowns into his wine. "What we are?" he nearly scoffs. "We are nothing but wraiths, bound to life by the Oath and the evil it forced on us."

Alarm etches itself onto Makalaurë's features, but his voice does not betray it. "Is life then a burden to you?"

"A lighter one than Everlasting Darkness in death," murmurs Maitimo, yet elevates his tone to continue, "But we have long remained in such a bind, between the Void and hateful life. Hateful if we slay our kin, hateful to live now with their ghosts; hateful to know that whatever may pass, the Silmaril lies drowned, and the Oath is now impossible."

"Making the Void now inevitable?" Makalaurë's voice is quiet, melancholy. "Even so, that is not the end of hope. If we give our best to what little is left to us, perhaps we shall be redeemed. And even if not, there is joy in what we have."

"We have nothing, save the Oath and the phantom Jewels."

"You speak for yourself, Russandol."

Makalaurë seems prepared to elaborate, but he suddenly looks up, his eyes lighting on the top of the staircase behind us. "You may come down," he calls gently, with a beckon of his hand. "It's quite all right." I turn my head, though the angle is somewhat uncomfortable, and see that he speaks to one of Eärendil's (not his own) sons, which of them, I cannot tell.

Four months they have been with us, hardly enough time for me to learn the difference between them. Makalaurë's sharp looks and firm corrections seem to label me a terrible "aunt" for my inability to distinguish them, but they are merely prisoners of war, hardly any responsibility of _mine_.

I shut my eyes briefly and raise a hand to my temples, embedding my elbow into the arm of the sofa. Unfortunately, I can imagine what concerns Elwing's child at this hour, but I hope against it. Perhaps he simply wishes for a cup of water. _If only._

The boy scampers down the stairs, behind Maitimo's and my couch, and to Makalaurë's side. "Was it the dream again, Elrond?" asks my brother-in-law softly, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind the boy's ear as he caresses his cheek.

The child -Elrond- only nods in reply, tossing a nervous glance over his shoulder at Maitimo. The dream. We have heard from Makalaurë many a tale of it: a nightmare in which my husband apparently succeeds at the task he began upon our first encounter with the boys. I know not whether it is Elrond, his brother, or both that are slain, but it is clearly quite terrifying. Perhaps if not for the dream, they would get on better with my husband, but with the constant reminder of his threat to them, the nightmare (I suppose it torments only Elrond, but his stories of it frighten his brother as well) will not let them forget the context of our first meeting.

Makalaurë extends his arms to the boy, and Elrond clambers into his lap, still refusing to look at Maitimo and me. The boy curls up into a ball, pressing his head tightly to Makalaurë's chest as his captor's arms envelop him. A tiny sob can be heard from his direction, and his small shoulders begin to tremble. "He..." The words are whispered at a volume that only Elrond thinks to be quiet. "He killed Elros."

Makalaurë combs his fingers through the boy's raven hair, leaning down to tenderly kiss the top of his head. "It was only a dream, dear; Elros is fine." The words attempt to soothe, but I have a feeling that it is only a matter of time before my brother-in-law begins to sing.

Maitimo looks uncomfortably at the floor, tenses his grip on his wine-glass, and takes a sip in poorly feigned nonchalance. The child refuses to comprehend how such a tale affects his "uncle." The retentive mind of the boy, stuck in the rut of the worst day of all of our lives, lets no one forget it. Elrond fears my husband, and Maitimo will always regret their meeting with a naked blade in between.

But the positions of everyone, at least to the children's minds, seem to have remained much the same as on that terrible day: themselves cowering before Maitimo, Makalaurë their comforter and protector, myself and the rest of the people to the sidelines, disregarding and likewise being disregarded by them. Standing aside and watching contention among the brothers, that has been my place for time out of mind-_meaning always._

The boy continues to sob, but the cries do gradually become less ragged, more like hiccups than harsh weeping. His sputters chafe at my ears. _Little fool. _As if he is the only one whose sleep is troubled.

Makalaurë looks up from the boy, and back and forth between Maitimo and me, saying quietly, "Would either of you care to bring us one of the muffins and a cup of milk?"

Maitimo rises, clearly glad to be gone, leaving me alone on the couch with a spectacle I tire of beholding. "Tell Maitimo I've gone ahead upstairs," I say to Makalaurë, standing to make my way toward the foot of the stairs.

Makalaurë nods with a "Good night, Rányë," to dismiss me.

The stone of the steps is terribly cold, and I scurry up them as quickly as I can. I swallow before entering the corridor they let out into. The windowless expanse's lamps are dead, and the only light to be had wavers in behind me from lanterns and the hearth in the parlour below.

Part of me wants to run through the hall with all speed, out of the grasping darkness and into the safety of the bedroom, but the other part asks for caution: No blind walk is safe. But the abysmal tunnel ahead frightens me more than any prospect of falling; I run.

My bare feet carry me lightly, still visible amid the undulating shadows, until I reach the bend in the hall that leaves me in pitch-darkness. I now sprint toward my goal, proceeding steadily until my toes catch upon a crack I have never before noticed, sending me sprawling across the stone.

I catch myself with my hands, but their palms, as well as my shins and knees, soon begin to sting. With a curse, I attempt to right myself once more, fumbling in the dark for the support of the wall. Finding it, I splay a hand across it and pull myself upright, vertical once more to limp the last few yards to the chamber and struggle against the terror of the darkness around me.

I will not acknowledge it; I will not dwell on it; it cannot hurt me.

**A huge thank-you to my long-suffering beta, Sauron Gorthaur! Thanks also to my two new reviewers, **_**BlueWanderer **_**and **_**ncfan**_**! Your feedback means a lot to me. :)**


	16. Is Torture

**A huge thanks to Sauron Gorthaur for beta'ing!**

Is Torture

_"The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd the shadow of your face."_

_-Shakespeare, _Richard II

Here on the bed, I stare into the vanity-mirror across from me, alternately keeping vigil over my own reflection and twisting the white fabric of the bedspread with idle fingers. Glancing up to the glass once more, I brush a hand over the bandage covering essentially the entire right side of my face, from temple to jaw-bone. The burns are raw even beneath that soft material, and no salve completely alleviates the pain.

My hair is tightly braided on the left side of my head, hanging down far past my shoulder. It has been four days since my _misadventure _(as Maitimo describes it). I recall my foolishness far too well.

/x/x/x/x/

Four days ago, I sit with my chin on the stone ledge of the hearth, shivering from the cold and hoping to warm myself more quickly with such proximity to the fire. I close my eyes, leaning comfortably against the out-jutted sill with my hair (wisely, perhaps) all resting on the shoulder furthest from the flames.

I am alone in the parlor at midday. (What play or labour fills the others' time, I neither know nor care.) A morning walk, however, taken on the jaded notion that the shining sun heralded comfortable air, chilled me to the bone and laid me here in this listless position, before the crackling, dancing, whispering flames. _Yes, indeed they whisper..._

A rustling, a hissing, a hundred thousand dry tongues, chafing scarlet against rasping throats. Mute tongues, starving tongues, and my hair on my left shoulder. My eyes probe their orange depths for order amid their flurried dance, watch the ashes writhing beneath as they shrivel, the smoke above precariously scaling the charred flue.

Blood throbs through my warm hands, arousing blue veins beneath the skin. Laced across prominent bones, they pulsate under the lightest touch. I work my bloated fingers, groping at the air, before resting them once more on the stone of the hearth. Cold. Never has it delighted me so.

Idly, I incline my ear to the flames. How like a voice, their final agony: whispered screams, hurried speech; unintelligible, yet language all the same. Perhaps there are words for me-

"_Do you think she can hear it?_" inquires a voice suddenly, speaking low so as to keep itself from my ears; but I laugh at its efforts- it is little use trying to hide from one so vigilant as me.

"_Hearing? That is doubtless,_" replies another. "_But does she understand? That is the more pertinent question to address. I do not believe the fool even knows their tongue."_

_"Disgraceful_!" exclaims a voice feminine and, in other context, perhaps doting, to the affirmation of its cohorts. "_I thought that every Fëanorian knew much about fire. It seems their weapon often enough, that is certain."_

We and our burning wake.

_Smoke ascends from the settling ashes, spectral masts for the lifeless fleet, disappearing quickly against the black sky. Behind them, the ocean pounds the shore, riled by the same north wind that whips my hair against my face. Fëanàro's host has spread its bivouac behind the cinders, and I stand alone outside our tent near the edge of the massive camp. _

_"Sleepless, as well?" I wheel left toward Curvo's voice. He walks beside his father, and the two are moving toward me, a flame and the shadow it throws. _

_"Yes," I return simply, startled from my thoughts. "These erratic rest periods-" I recover, attempting a smile. "-never seem all that timely."_

_"Yes, the stars are a worthless timepiece," Fëanáro states dispassionately. "Yet if they served us well at Cuiviénen, I suppose we can accustom ourselves to them again." I nod, and he is briefly silent, appearing to assess me before inquiring, "What do you make of it, Rányë?" He spreads an arm to indicate the ashes._

I tilt my head to one side, right and inward, toward the flames, though yet a far cry from touching them. "What... what am I supposed to hear?" I ask, and my voice emerges shyly. Whether my face grows hot in shame for such a query, or merely due to the warmth of the fire, I cannot tell.

"_Whatever wisdom they have to offer you, of course_," responds the first voice, and I am grateful to be addressed. "_If you would understand, I bid you move closer to them. The tongues speak softly and quickly; it will take utmost care to comprehend their words._"

Uncomfortably, with a furrowed brow, I lean toward the hearth, pressing my frame against the cool, smooth stone. Such heat upon my face, such cold upon my body- a chill tingles through me from the contrast.

"_Can you understand them now?"_ asks the third voice, mockingly, making it clear that anyone with sense at all would be able to hear and comprehend.

Yet the words remain incomprehensible. Ashamed, I reply, "Mostly, but I am not quite catching all of it. Should I be nearer them?"

"Rányë, are you well?" This newest tongue is quiet beside its fellows; I ignore it easily.

"_Listen, listen_!" chides a voice. "_With but more care you will hear."_

I nod to no one and lean closer to the flames. _Perhaps_. Perhaps this time I will understand.

"_What folly! What madness! To be thus near to her object yet regard it so little... Tell her 'closer'; she will succeed_."

"_Closer! Closer, ere your ears are forever shut._"

"Rányë, I asked, 'are you well?'"

I can hold my ear this near the open flames for but seconds ere I bite my lip, clench my eyes shut against the heat. The breath of an inferno, it ghosts blazing across my skin. "I listen," are my words through gritted teeth.

"Shall we then praise the Valar?" It grows indignant; I disregard it. "What are you doing?"

"_That is good, good. You are but inches from enlightenment; press on!_"

I purse my lips, move my head an inch's fraction closer, then swiftly withdraw it. "I cannot." My voice is surprisingly firm. "I can do no more from here; I am sorry. Let them speak louder, if they would have words with me."

"Who would have words with you? Rányë, have you lost your wits entirely?"

Something heavy suddenly lands on my left shoulder, something cold. My heart flutters wildly, and I whirl about, nearly striking my head against the arch of the hearth. A hand, Maitimo's; I've squirmed from beneath it in my fright.

"Rányë, there are much simpler ways to kill yourself than burning your head to a cinder. What is the purpose of this?" He gestures wearily toward the fireplace.

"I- I-" I stammer. "_Some things are best kept secret,"_ interrupts a different voice. "I was cold," I say simply.

"Near freezing, it would seem." He sighs.

"_Closer, you fool! Why have you given up now? You have yet to truly fail. If only you would-_"

"Be careful, then." Maitimo's footfalls are silent on the stone floor as he leaves me, passing through the parlour and up the stairs.

Warily, I return my gaze to the fire, fingering the ledge of the hearth as the flames grapple before my eyes. One is forced down, another rises up, to infinity in a hypnotic circle. Almost I am entranced-

**"**_If ever you would hear them, fool, draw near now!"_

The urgency in that voice calls me to attention, demands obedience. I thrust my head toward the flames once more; I do not withdraw it until the flesh begins to burn.

_I purse my lips against a salvo of tangled thoughts, make no answer. If I speak the truth, he will fancy me a liar. When thoughts and actions are at odds, the field between them is excruciating._

_"Come, there is nothing to fear," prods Fëanáro. "I do not ask questions whose answers I know."_

_Perhaps, then, he will believe me when the truth is what he wants to hear: that the crown is his, and there is no room in the Hither Lands for usurpers. I swallow and reply, "I stood aside in body, but my heart was with you."_

_He addresses Curvo. "So I thought."_

_"I suppose there is some sense in her, after all." My brother-in-law's voice is sardonic but humorless; he looks at me askance, as he would an item in a dishonest transaction, then clears his throat. "Tell us, Rányë: has Maitimo recanted yet?"_

_"You know he doesn't recant." My response is simple and flat. "He says you have fallen too far; he calls you poisonous, calls you traitors. He says you've brought Námo's curses down on yourselves. He says you will tear yourselves apart."_

_Fëanáro's lips curl into an almost feral smile. "He fails to see that I have done my little brother a favor: Nolofinwë now has another chance at redemption, no choice but to turn back and save himself." His eyes glimmer, fey and silver, refracting the starlight. "As for treachery and Námo's curses, it would appear that Nelyo is himself a dissenter. Tell him we are one host now, and he is the poison."_

_"I- I will."_

_"Tell him decadence is like free-fall, that at Alqualondë, we all lost our footing, that we all now plummet toward the same rocks below. We must learn to love those rocks; they are our destiny."_

/x/x/x/x/

Here on the bed, the bandage agitates my skin; would it be so terrible if I removed it for only a moment? The cloth chafes against the open wounds- and perhaps the salve may be re-applied.

The gauze is wrapped around the top and side of my head, securely tucked into itself so as to ensure that the un-maimed left side at least is visible. Lifting a cold and clammy hand from the surface of the bedspread, I fidget with the cloth as gingerly as I am able, probing it for the crevices that mark its ends.

To poke burned flesh with a fingernail is terribly painful, and once doing so, I yelp- but the moment of further pain does not deter me. At last I find an end of the cloth, untucking a horizontal counterpart before I begin the unwrapping process.

The bandage has clung to the raw and open skin, which makes it a thousand times more agonizing to not only remove it, but peel it off. I bite my lip to keep from crying out; with each layer of cloth I displace, it feels as though I am pulling the live flesh itself from the bones. At last all that remains is the layer nearest my eye, and I pluck the last of the gauze from its vicinity.

I do not know why I did not use the mirror as I removed the cloth (now dyed a wet red from its contact with the burns); perhaps I was too focused on the pain to concern myself with visual guidance, and, at any rate, the process was fairly straightforward, with few intricacies of wrapping to deal with, thankfully. But now the looking glass, ever present if unheeded, is obvious to my gaze.

I slip off the bed, walking around to its foot to stand and observe the damage done to my countenance. The sight there is detestable: in some places, the skin is merely red, a deep and fleshy shade of salmon that will more than likely disappear- such are along the side zxof my nose, between there and the left half of my eye, as well as my forehead- but in others there seems to be no skin at all, instead I find great scarlet blisters, open and raw. Such is my ear and most of my cheek and chin; I have no right eyebrow, and only half of my eyelashes. Almost I put my hands together and raise them to my lips, which sting but the more as I attempt to frown.

Some compulsion within me beckons that I touch the wounds, but I stifle it, knowing that will but pain me the more. Tears suddenly sting at my eyes; blinking them back from my right hurts unspeakably, but I do so, trying not to contemplate how painful salt streaming into those gaping blisters would be. Such a thought only disturbs me more.

But terrible as the pain is, of itself it evokes the response of weeping now little more than it did when the burns were concealed. It is vanity- simple vanity and silly pride- that reduces me to tears: I am hideous. It is hardly that I was ever particularly fair, but disfigurement suits no one.

It will heal, I am sure- perhaps sooner rather than later, and until it does I will more than likely be put to the torment of another bandage to rub against it- but such a massive wound will certainly leave a _permanent_ scar.

And I am at fault for it. What foolishness; did not Maitimo warn me to be careful? The once that I would not heed him, the once that his command would spare me pain, not gain me it: such must be my fate. I stretch a hesitant finger toward the maroon skin along my cheekbone, yet recoil before touching the flesh, cursing myself and every flame in Eä.

_In the silence that follows, I study Fëanáro's features-all hard lines and sharp edges. He no longer looks at me, but toward the horizon, toward Helcaraxë-all stark icebergs and treacherous waters. _

_"If Maitimo would fight his fate," Fëanáro continues (and his breath hangs vaporous in the air), "he would dry his tears and quench his bitterness. He would stand for keeping whole the family that matters."_

_I say nothing of how Maitimo's tears are none, how stony silence is the token of his bitterness, a cold righteous anger that refuses to abate. Instead I nod quietly along, wondering why Fëanáro _cares so much_._

_"Tell him," says Curvo, with a strange look as if my thoughts were written on my skin, "that we extend a hand of peace, for his own sake. If his anger fuses, it will shape him into a lonely creature. We do not need him, but he is purposeless without us."_

_I bite my lip. "Perhaps you ought to speak to him yourselves."_

_Each word of Fëanáro's is needle-sharp. "Would he listen?" I do not answer._

_Curvo smirks at my silence. "Perhaps he listens now."_

_I feel suddenly in the way, worthless, transparent; I am only an excuse to speak outside Maitimo's tent. "He seemed asleep when I stepped outside," I say, almost defensively._

_"Then tell him when he wakes, just the same." Curvo shrugs. "When he is ready to fall, he will join us. His options are few, and this choice is the happier." _

_I know he will join us soon._

I am a fool; even Maitimo said so, when what must have been a scream called him back downstairs to me. I tried to explain to him what had happened, but through my suppressed sobs all I believe he caught was that I was deaf. _"Then what in Arda has that to do with charring your face?" _was his aggravated reply. He hates me, and he will hate me all the more when he sees my scars.

I turn my head to better examine the wounds on the side of it, and I come to the conclusion that the ear is the worst. It is nearly crimson, and much of the top layer of skin is not only marred but entirely gone. The image, and the fact that it is of my own body, is nearly nauseating. I rotate my head once more, this time set to look my disfigured reflection in the eyes; I cannot do it.

_"Finally," _remarks an unfamiliar voice, _"the external complements that within."_


	17. You Can Be Sure of One Thing

**A thousand thank-yous to Sauron Gorthaur for beta'ing! **

You Can Be Sure of One Thing

_"If it is a delusion, it's a pretty stubborn one."_

_-C.S. Lewis, __Perelandra_

Why we still have feasts and celebrations when all hope is lost is a fact beyond my comprehension. I suppose it is for the people's sake; just because their leaders are doomed beyond hope does not mean their own times of mirth must be taken away.

I always used to enjoy summer feasts, in Tirion, on Taniquetil, even at Formenos and Himring; it was always my favourite season: Noldo though I am, I delighted to see the world aglow with green. In Valinor Maitimo and Makalaurë were always in agreement that the autumn festival was the best, but all joviality was removed from its association upon our last day in Aman: a day of darkness and grief.

But today's celebration is for midsummer, and I appear to be the only one among the revelers completely appalled by it. From my seat alone at a small wooden table, with a hand clasped tightly around a glass of dark wine in need of replenishing, I observe great chains of lanterns strung from tree to tree here at the foot of Ereb. They swing ever so gently in a night-breeze, and a sudden image comes to my mind of their falling upon the celebration and setting all aflame. It seems that my still-healing, though now exposed, burns sting just slightly more at that thought.

A great bonfire burns somewhere near the middle of the feast, a fair distance from the few trees growing beside the great hill; strangely enough, a number of revelers dance around it, to the cheery music of harp, flute, and elvish voices. All about is the bustle and hum of conversation and laughter; over everything is the pervading scent of good things to eat: roast meat, fresh fruit, pastries, cakes, and of course, in however sparse of quantity, aged wine of high caliber. (That is the sole benefit of living in a realm completely ravaged by war: everything to be drunk was pressed long ago.)

I take another swallow of the maroon liquid and cast an eye down the short length of the table to see if its bottle is still to be found (full), when I am suddenly approached by Makalaurë and the- _his _twins.

"Rányë," says my brother-in-law with a teasing smile, "Elros noticed you were sitting over here and has a question for you."

I suppress the curse that springs to my lips, pursing them instead into a forced smile. Judging from the tone of his voice, Makalaurë is the one in truth with a question for me, or an insult under wraps. He must think, however, that I will respond more kindly to the boy than to him. _Idiot. _His desperate infatuation with those ridiculous children has only served to damage his mind.

"Well, what is it?" I inquire as kindly as I may, gaze darting back and forth between "father" and "son." I suddenly become acutely aware of eyes fixed on me from the shadows behind. _Focus. _I barely repress the urge to whirl around and face them.

Elros looks first at his feet, then uncomfortably up at me. The burns, of course: I would not want to look at them, either. "Aunt Rányë," he says quietly, "why aren't you enjoying the party?"

Makalaurë is the greatest fool I have ever seen: _Why am I not enjoying the party! _Perhaps his Oath and his house's curse could tell him better than I.

_An icy wind - blown south from the straits - ruffled my loose hair and bit my skin. I stood between Maitimo and Lairendís (Carnistir's wife now in Námo's keeping) on the deck of an ivory ship whose prow resembled a graceful swan. Clutching the white wood with gloved fingers, I shivered._

_In this twilit darkness, the few unclouded stars were reflected in pitch-black waters beside the golden beams of lanterns attached to the masts of the stolen fleet. I could still scarcely believe how quickly my eyes had adjusted to the grey light of this eternal dusk, leaving the wide world of shadows distinctly and terrifyingly visible. _

_I had always before enjoyed the notion of the sea, taken pleasure in a leisurely sail with my kin on a hot summer day, but now I had learned to fear it- its darkness, its volatility. White splinters floated past us, ships' bones, broken by the wrathful sea. A chill ran through me with another gust of wind. _

_With no words left between us, we had fallen silent, watching the obsidian ocean pour slowly by. Out of desire for something to say more than curiosity, I inquired, "Where is Carnistir?"_

_Aboard so small a vessel there were few places he could be, but it seemed an appropriate question nonetheless. "Below deck with Ambarussa, when last I saw him," was the reply. "What they were doing, I do not know- probably eating." My sister-in-law smiled faintly, running a hand through caramel-coloured hair that the breeze had managed to fluster. _

_"All right," I answered detachedly, not taking my eyes from the bare ocean ahead. "I was curious." _

_Our ship was (of course) in the van of the fleet, sailing alongside that of Fëanáro, whereon were the other three of his sons and the adolescent Telperinquar. Even now I could see my father-in-law at the helm; the recent joke was that he had discovered Telerin heritage and drawn from it his new skills as commodore of the stolen fleet- and that he would rather wreck the ships than let anyone else determine their course._

_"The sea-faring Fëanáro," Maitimo remarked, seeing to where my gaze had turned, "high lord of the Swan-ships."_

_"Such a thing," murmured Lairendís, smiling and shaking her head without even glancing our father-in-law's way._

_"What can he not do?" I said, emulating Lairendís with a dry chuckle._

_"Admit that there is aught he cannot do," returned Maitimo wryly, and I nodded my agreement. We fell silent again, eyes turning to the mountains ahead. The cold, rocky contours of Araman drew ever nearer, and the wind whistled among their crags, audible already from a distance- however slight- such as this. The stars appeared wholly different crowning those peaks- perhaps not quite so high and unreachable as before._

_From the ship itself, our progress appeared slow, an eternal dragging of rudder and keel over cantankerous seawater as viscous as honey, but we were indeed making some semblance of speed, for soon we found ourselves beneath the mountains' shadow. And I beheld upon a high tine that image that had haunted and chased me since the days of my youth._

_A tall, dark figure, massive and cloaked, stood upon a rock to the west, holding up a hand as signal for our fleet to stop and take heed. _

_"Maitimo," I whispered, mouth drying, eyes widening, as on the countless other days it had espied me from shadows behind. Never before had the malevolent presence made itself so obvious; I felt naked. "Some- something," I stuttered, light-headed, "something... is watching us." _

_My husband's first response was a sigh, followed by the overused, scarcely comforting words, "Rányë, there is nothing to fear." But I pointed toward the perched lurker with shaking hands; sighing again, Maitimo obeyed my indication, and the next sound from his lips was a startled gasp. "What is that?" he murmured, turning around to bid our captain stop the ship, as Fëanáro too was doing._

_My breathing quickened; my heart pounded wildly, furiously. The blood throbbing in my ears muffled the specter's words. Whether this - Námo or a doomsaying emissary - was the persecutor I had known for years mattered little. All I knew, all that rattled my brain and cowed my yellow soul, all I gleaned from the poison spewing out of his dark lips, was that he certainly would be now. I- we would not be watched with mere malice alone, but malice and wrath; we were the worst sort of wrongdoers, doomed to failure and death._

_I gripped the deck's white railing fervently, harshly, to keep my hands from visibly shaking. Tears burned behind my eyes, and I felt the blood leave my head, blinding me briefly until the world appeared once more, a stark white circle, expanding in the blackness. My stomach dropped; my lips quivered: this phantom was every fear I had ever known. My resolve to continue shook with my body._

_I glanced around the deck to see if any were of like mind (like petrified mind), any others cowed into the possibility of retreat. With the halting of our voyage the entire body of passengers (some thirty or forty Noldor) had come up to hear the fateful words. I imagined they now regretted putting forth the effort. Though I had been here for hours beforehand, I knew I did._

_Though none seemed as emotional as myself, on the face of many, including Lairendís, I saw dismay, worry, outright terror. Since we had turned to face the doomsayer, Maitimo stood behind me; I knew he would not be shaken; I glanced up at his visage. _

_Sure enough, his countenance was more hardened than ever, but I saw that the dark figure no longer held his gaze. His eyes were only for Fëanáro, who stood rigid and erect, unmoved by dark words or divine threats. One needed not see his face- or even his stance- to know his opinion on the matter. The King would continue, heedless of doom, for the Oath and for his own pride. From the expression of every son of his I could see, he would not do so alone._

_And despite the appeal of return, I could not do so in such circumstances. _Really, _a stray thought affirmed me, _if the Valar hated you without reason while you obeyed their decrees and belonged to a house not cursed, what makes you think you will escape their malice now? _I knew the notion to be right, and so I stayed. _

Would I regret it? Do I regret it? I fear the answer is- and has remained- a definitive _yes_. But the test of true repentance is whether one would choose the path a second time: I would, though I would rue it and loathe myself for doing so, even as I do now. If Maitimo chose differently, then I would be immediately swayed to decide likewise, but if all remained the same but me, I would still come to Endor, and I would do so until I ran out of chances for redemption.

"Aunt Rányë?" Elros' piping young voice is almost concerned. "Aunt Rányë, are you all right?" I blink back the accursed tears that threaten to pour down over my patch of maroon scars- a sight that would be even more hideous than the scars alone.

"Yes," I reply quickly, applying once more my simper, "yes. Just too much wine." The feeble attempt at explaining away my brimming eyes is met with a hard glance from my brother-in-law. (I wish I could say he shelters those children purely out of care for their "innocent" minds; yet the twisted game of make-believe he has pieced together for himself involves, I know, strange definitions of protection that add up to his own salvation.)

"And that is why you are not enjoying yourself?" puts in Elrond, raising both eyebrows in an expression that most would- and certainly Makalaurë does- consider endearingly comical. I hear the musicians strike up another song; this brings many to the circle of dancers around the great fire.

"Hardly," I reply absently, feeling the burden of the presence behind me heavily once more. "I am simply enjoying myself differently than you are."

I make use of my peripherals and survey the surroundings for shadows darker than those cast by lamplight.

"But _that_," elaborates Makalaurë, putting a hand on a shoulder of each child and turning them away from me, "is not a proper way to spend a feast, not for you- not for anyone. Not even for Aunt Rányë."

"She doesn't count as 'anyone'?" asks one of the boys- Elrond, I believe- but they are out of earshot and enmeshed in the crowd before I can hear the response. _A pity, really- _that is an opinion of my brother-in-law's I would not mind hearing.

_The eyes. _I shoot a glance over each shoulder and into the thin belt of trees behind me. They are brightly lit, and I see no threat for the moment, though it is clearly to be felt. Comforted for the time being, I drain my wine-glass to the last drop, and my gaze lights at last on a bottle standing at the opposite end of the table. It veritably beckons to me, and drawn, I rise from my chair, stretching my legs in a brief jaunt to claim its contents for my lamentably empty glass.

Dodging several clusters of revelers, one containing my husband, smiling fakely and in conversation with several of his people, I reach the glorious vessel's locale and lift it, feeling the dark green glass cool in my hand. I tilt it diagonally, wait anxiously for my glass to be filled- but not a droplet emerges. I shake the bottle, but it does no good: some fool must have drunk every bit of it.

A loud curse escapes my lips, earning me a few bemused glances, but I cannot care less for them. I turn once more toward the trees, frantically, and without even probing the shadows around them, I see once more my pursuer: as dark and horrible as it stood behind me in Formenos and above me in Araman.

_"Flee!" _shouts a voice. _"Fight!" _demands another.

I obey the latter first; the bottle remains in my hand, and it becomes a projectile, hurtling through the air at the head of the creature. It does not touch it, though, instead landing with a thud and a shatter on the ground: spilling out wine as red as blood. I curse again, more quietly this time, then I run.


	18. That's Fate

**Many thanks - as always! - to Sauron Gorthaur for beta'ing! **

That's Fate

_"What harm? Men die- externally-_

_It is a truth- of Blood-_

But_ we- are dying in Drama-_

_And Drama- is never dead"_

_-Emily Dickinson, _Final Harvest: Poems

_Up, down; back, forth; up, down. _Across the surface of my night-table squeaks the stained cloth of a threadbare rag. I have always hated such menial chores as dusting, but despite the fact that Maitimo and I could easily pay one of the people to do the job for me, I find myself at work on the project late into the evening.

Recently, I have decided- coming to the conclusion upon finding a spot of dirt on my glass- that I am the only one capable of cleaning the places I visit. I leave an aura, a dust, a dark cloud to fog the clear sight of any housekeeper, leaving no hope of dissipating this black mist, though it is visible to everyone but me. It is the only logical explanation for the stares and pointed fingers, for why I have not seen Makalaurë's "children"- except at meals- for weeks. Who knows? They might think it contagious.

_So_, I think to myself as the nightstand's layer of dust is dispelled, _the burden of cleaning- if I want it done- has fallen on my shoulders. _Once upon a time the lack of cleanliness would have bothered me little at all, but now, every speck of dirt or dust seems to leap out at me and beg for removal. I could ignore it, of course, for ignorance is a talent of mine, but I have discovered that having a task to complete helps keep me in my right mind.

I have never truly felt as though I have purpose in life, but now I do, even if it is but something as feeble and pathetic as keeping the floor and furniture clean. Even though there is no hope for us, as long as I can occupy myself, those thoughts find little place in my mind. Someday, I hope to have cleaned our entire living quarters, but I can never seem to find motivation to work further than the bedroom. It is an unending task, for with time dust and dirt will return: and some, like my own, lingers permanently.

_Do I leave it behind, even when doing my own cleaning? _No. No, that is impossible. _How would I know? I cannot see it. _What if even the household chores that have become my one solace come in the end to futility? _I will not let it happen. _But if I see the areas as clean, what does it matter what others do? _But do you wish them to see your cloud? _No- certainly not! It is almost as hideous as my countenance.

I scrub more vigourously at the wooden nightstand; it proves a fitting distraction from my doubts, and, to _my_ eyes at least, it is soon immaculate. I replace its contents: lamp and knife, the same since our move from Ossiriand to Ereb after the Nirnaeth. This is home now, but the thought of fallen Himring, aflame as I and the people fled it, still grieves me.

Where next? The dresser? It seems appropriate; I believe it has been four days at the very minimum since I last dusted it. But even as I move toward it, the door is flung open, slamming against the wall behind it with such force that, with a startled yelp, I jump.

Maitimo, as could have been predicted, stands in the doorway, looking more upset than I have seen him in years. Since the loss of the Silmaril, we have both become remarkably placid, blank, showing minimal emotion, though he keeps the social graces I have never possessed. "Rányë, come quickly," he says, eyes wide and alert. "There is something you'll have to see to believe."

I immediately drop my rag and make my way to his side, asking, "What's wrong?"

"Makalaurë and I have found the Silmaril," he states plainly, already heading for the doorway. I quickly follow suit, legs pumping to keep up with his swift strides.

"Found it?" I demand. "Are you mad? We all saw it cast into the ocean! Where do you suppose you have found it?" He makes a right turn after exiting our bedroom, down another low hallway, this ending with a small wooden door, behind which is a set of steps that lead out onto the rooftop battlements.

"As I said," is his only reply, "you will simply have to see it." A knot forms in the pit of my stomach, and I am not sure which frightens me more: Maitimo's behaviour or the darkness of the corridor. No more is said, and my husband's gaze appears fixed ahead on the entry to the stairs.

We reach it terribly soon, take a dozen or so cracked steps to its summit; I cling to the rail for loathed life all the way up in the darkness. Emerging out of a small, roofed shelter, able to be used as a break-house for guards, I set foot on the roof for the first time in my abiding at Ereb.

The hour is but little past sundown, but already the air seems brightly lit by moon and starlight. Strange. Even a full moon does not cast such a glow. The grey twilight presses swiftly around, and the illumination from above is markedly white.

We round the little structure, arriving on the west side of the roof to greet Makalaurë, who stands leaning on the stone parapet, eyes fixed on the sky and horizon ahead. I turn to Maitimo and whisper, "Where is the Silmaril?"

"Look outward," he responds quietly, and I comply. Joining my brother-in-law at the battlement, I scan the darkling western horizon and soon perceive, just above it, the most radiant star I have ever seen. It blazes like a jewel of white fire, dimming the moonlight. The silver rays land dappled by the parapet, and I inhale sharply. "_We found the Silmaril."_

Words fail me, though they so often tend to. The first thought to my mind is how much more hopeless this makes our situation, but the second I express to Maitimo, who now stands on the rail as well, to my left, "Is it really that far worse than the ocean floor?"

He smiles, grimly and without joy. "I have yet to decide that- though Makalaurë feels it is better." He turns to his brother, looking pointedly at the other Oath-bearer over my head.

"It is," states Makalaurë. "If it must be out of our grasp, is it not better that it is on display, for all the world to see and admire? Father would prefer it this way, illuminating the night and pointing everyone in Arda to the greatness of his skill. It is safe now from harm and theft; it is finally free."

"As truly as you speak," counters Maitimo, "we are not free, and the same height that keeps it from evil keeps it also from its rightful heirs." Here he sighs, almost in concession. "But so did the ocean, and in the ocean it was deemed hidden and lost. I suppose we at least no longer have to fear for it, though; we can now expend that energy on terror for ourselves."

"And rightly you should be terrified," I murmur, never breaking my gaze from the star ahead. Involuntarily, I caress the stone of the battlements.

"But no more than we usually are," amends Makalaurë, and I suppose that he is right in that as well. He pauses for a minute but soon continues, clearly recalling to mind a different thought. "Perhaps this is a sign for Morgoth's fall, as well- that the Valar are regaining sway once more. Did Námo not prophesy, ages ago, that the fate of Arda, earth, sky, and sea, lay entwined with that of the Silmarils? Though I suppose Elwing's casting it there would have fulfilled the 'sea' portion, now at last part of that seems to have come to pass."

I nod, though the idea of the Valar regaining sway- or beginning to desire to- does little to comfort me. Maitimo expresses a similar thought himself, "You are most likely right again, Kano. It is a sure sign of their dominion that the first act of the Valar in centuries would be a direct slight against our house and our Oath. They too keep their word, slay us as it may."

Makalaurë laughs mirthlessly, nearly snorting. "Why should we expect any differently? We forget who we are at times, it seems."

I now place my elbow on the battlement, resting my chin on my right knuckle as I observe the celestial orb that I once held, long ago as a young daughter-in-law impressed by Fëanáro's craft. It has been longer than I realize since I last thought of the Silmarils as such, or remembered when first I saw them. When they carry doom, it becomes all too easy to forget what they really are, how I felt about them before they usurped the throne of all our lives.

The Jewels were so innocent then, when they carried more significance than any other of the fair things Fëanáro had made only in that they were more beautiful. I was- we all were- delighted by them as we were the blue lamps and the _palantíri_, never fathoming that one day they would become more important than any of us. How is it that this Jewel's new state reminds me of its original nature?

"It seems a terrible thing," I say suddenly, "that such an object of beauty should seal your fate."

"Both literally and figuratively it now guards the gates of the Void," replies Maitimo, sighing, "a token tragic and ironic."

"Is not that the tale of our lives?" remarks Makalaurë. "Tragedy and irony- so clever they seem in writing, but far less delightful to endure in life." He laughs for the second time tonight. "But if this were a play we would long ago have become the villains."

"A strange production it would appear," remarks Maitimo, "to revolve around something as ridiculous as jewels and gems. Would any even care to watch it?"

"I know I would not," I interject. "Any person who hates you enough to find this entertaining..." Even as I speak the thought drifts away, lost on an internal wind of distraction or stolen by the very individual I was attempting to make a point about. _Who is it?_

Fortunately, Maitimo continues where I trailed off, "Would probably be a character in the drama." He chuckles morbidly to himself. "Or would have already killed or been killed by us. It is remarkable how quickly such a plot point as the Silmarils draws conflict," he muses dryly, and I smile: if I do not laugh with him about it, I know I will cry. "Which leaves the position of villain wholly subjective," he adds in response to Makalaurë's first comment. He is right.

"Perhaps to the characters," returns my brother-in-law, "but to the audience I fear it would be perfectly obvious. Of course, I suppose that also could vary with the playwright's identity; if the Valar took on the project, then we already know how they would spin things."

"Indeed, the current scene would probably be the greatest laugh of the entire thing." After a brief pause, Maitimo adds slowly, "I wonder some times how the drama ends, though I can well predict that the lights will be snuffed out and the players left in darkness."

"But we cannot know that," answers Makalaurë. "Perhaps there is some twist at the end of the script, a turn of fortune that neither audience nor actor suspects. Perhaps the play is no true tragedy at all."

"But when the playwrights have never named it anything but such, the drama's end is decided," says Maitimo definitively, "however the characters may feel on the matter. That is the poor fate of being a character: it seems the playwright hardly acknowledges your opinion."

"Alas, he completely disregards you. 'Do you not count it enough to be my creation, be used by me?' is all he seems to say," reflects Makalaurë. "Though I scarcely believe it, I have always heard that he knows best."

Listening to this grim speech and staring out upon the Silmaril shining low in the sky, I find a sense of despair growing within me. If I were truly a character in such a grand drama, it seems I am one terribly out of place and created by a playwright too despicable for words. To inflict such trials upon me, he must be a greater sadist than I am.

But if not for the trials, there would be no story, and if there was no story, there would be no need for characters- no need for us. I almost wish it was true; oblivion seems a blissful alternative to the horror of life.

Perhaps that is all this really is, a massive play put on by actors so skilled that I have been brought to life, and some actress is within me: she is all I really am. _Abandon me! I would rather not exist at all than live through you. _But I sense no other here. I am real, not one of a gifted player's many masks. Who would I be, then, if not myself?

_No one. _Would even that be so terrible, though? To become a nonentity, trapped forever in a darkness one does not even realize exists, dead to the world and to oneself: is such the Void? That hardly sounds so awful.


	19. A Human Presence

**Thank you to Sauron Gorthaur for the betaread! :)**

A Human Presence

_"Some things that, at first sight, appear to be extremely eccentric can turn out to be quite logical in genesis."_

_-Barbara Nadel, __Arabesk_

Autumn cleaning is really no more special than that of any other time of year; by now, though, even spring cleaning has lost its real significance. All of the chores run together in a dreadful cycle I cling to for lack of any other activity. They are dull, certainly, but not nearly so dull as sitting on the bed for hours every day, staring vacantly into the looking glass at an image I cannot stand to see. At times I still find myself catatonic before the mirror, but now I prefer to clean. (The chores at least have purpose.)

Now, as I find myself sweeping the dining hall's floor for the third time this week, a nagging realization of my aching limbs begins to whine at my consciousness. The heavy broom's wooden haft is battered, its forest-green paint long ago peeled from age and use. It takes both arms to lift it, arms which are sore after an hour of extending and withdrawing them while holding the mammoth tool. With a sigh, and one last heave at the scant crumbs beneath the table, I lean against it, clasping the handle with all my little might to support myself.

Glancing behind me toward the row of chairs, removed from their positions for sweeping's sake, I take a few steps and collapse into one of the seats, letting the broom balance against the left armrest. I inhale sharply, catching my breath as I examine the palms of my hands. Though not bleeding, they are bright red, calloused at the joints. I flex the fingers gently. Alas, such is the price I must pay for daily occupation.

After all these years it seems right that I finally take on the duties of a housewife. _Someone _has to keep this house clean, especially after Seregil's wife left us. (Why Maitimo made it my job to inform her of her husband's death was never clear to me; perhaps he, unlike Makalaurë, was unaware of the circumstances under which the _nér _reached Mandos.)

_Sitting down across from her at the dining room table, I cleared my throat and said simply, fumbling with a tie on my sleeve, "I regret to inform you that Seregil was slain in the attack on Siriombar." I did not look up, but I heard her gasp. I knew to listen carefully for the intake to become a sob. It did._

_"No," she whispered, and by the muffling of the sound, I could tell she had covered her mouth with her hands. _

_"I am sorry-" I began, but a voice interrupted. _

"Will you attempt to cover your crimes even now? Are you ashamed of what you did? How dare you lie to this woman! She deserves to know how her husband died. He tried to kill you; gloat if you must. Speak the truth."

_The torrent of words threatened to continue, pouring on and on, infinitely prodding me toward honesty. "No," I said, shaking my head, a smile almost upon my features, "I am not." _

_We both met the other's eyes at once. I imagine mine were full of mirth or something like it; hers were laden with unshed tears. _

_"He turned on me," I continued. "What could I do but survive? But it was not me that did it; no, no, it was Makalaurë. Thank the Valar he was there to defend me-" True horror suddenly gripped me with the next realization I expressed. "-just think: Seregil would be the one before you today, not me." The thought sent chills down my spine, but I still continued, as even more new notions came to my mind. _

_"Though, if you think about it, his abandoning our army means he would not have returned with us. He abandoned you, as well," I mused, watching as she bowed her head and continued to weep. Her curses fell on deaf ears as I made my way upstairs._

"What are you smiling about, Rányë?" Recalled to the present by Maitimo's bemused voice, I find something like a grin on my face. If nothing else, the memory is entertaining: a pleasant reflection on a time when for once I was able to make my meaning clear.

Keeping the expression to address my husband, I reply, "Only reminiscing about what I told Laehíril about Seregil before she left for Ossiriand."

"What do you think you told her?" responds Maitimo slowly, brow furrowing. I suppose the confused expression on his face is due to an attempt at recalling his command to me.

"Do you not remember asking me to tell her of his... passing?" I prompt. "I never really knew why you had me do it, but I feel as though I did the task justice."

"Rányë," he says, and I cannot any longer tell whether the slowness of the words is due to his own puzzlement or a desire to address me as one would a child, "you know well that Laehíril died years before Seregil." I cast him a quizzical glance. _What is he talking about? _I _know _I spoke with her. He elaborates, "A party of Orcs, do _you_ not remember? She never returned from a visit to her family ten years before Siriombar. You yourself were the one weeping hardest for her. You told Seregil some story about how kind she had been in giving you a dusting rag."

"I did not," I reply with certainty. _Why does he think me incapable of recalling my own deeds? Why can he not remember even his own? _"You asked me to speak with her after Sirion. Why do you deny it?"

He sighs in response, shaking his head with resignation and a grim smile. "If you think I did, who am I to argue it?" He places a tender hand on my shoulder before passing behind me into the kitchen.

_Did I win? _I think I won. With the thought, a grin returns to my visage, and I leap up from the chair, filled with sudden motivation to continue my chore. _I have the sounder memory. I am the victor. _Smiling, I return to sweeping with renewed vigour, hardly heeding the soreness of my limbs. I even find myself humming a tune. A beautiful little ballad it is, one Makalaurë himself penned long ago in Aman. The memory of those carefree days only serves to increase my delight.

In a few minutes, Maitimo emerges from the kitchen bearing a half-eaten apple. "Good day!" I call.

He tosses a glance over his shoulder, meets my eyes, and nods in reply to me, a small smile curving his lips. I continue in my task, humming all the louder as I approach the end of the table. It is a thrill and a relief to know that I am drawing toward the end of at least that portion of my chore. After I finish the table, the rest of the floor, of course, remains, but the table so dominates the hall that the space around it is little.

Stroke upon heavy stroke, the broom's straw bristles kiss the ground beneath the massive table, forming a neat and growing pile of food crumbs beside my feet. How disgusting to think we live- and eat!- with such a lack of sanitation. Even in just two days there is a surprising residue left behind after the five meals taking place since last I swept. I crinkle my nose, appalled, and so consumed am I in my thoughts for cleanliness that I do not realize how soon I have reached the table's end.

I am told of my arrival by the contact of the sharp table edge with my hip. I yelp in pain and jump back, startled, setting foot directly onto the pile of crumbs. They scatter, and I repeat almost as many curses aloud as spring to the fore of my mind, even on a day that was as delightful as this. I look with despair at the dispersed crumbs. Though they have not returned to their former positions, flying only within a yard's radius of the clump they once formed, it is still a frustration to collect them once again. I do so, though, slowly and carefully, so that no sudden movement blows them hither and yon once more. To once repeat my task is one thing, but twice is another entirely.

It is not until the morsels are at last gathered in my sturdy wooden dustpan, and I have turned to toss them out the kitchen window, that I for the first time feel the eyes. _Is there no escape for me?_ I purse my lips, casting a wary glance behind me before continuing with squared shoulders on into the kitchen to dispose of the crumbs.

It seems their gaze lightens somewhat as I pass out of the cavernous dining room and into the better-lit kitchen, but it returns in full force once I bestow the broom and dustpan beside the counter, their contents outside to the mercy of the wind, and wander back into the dining hall to replace the chairs. I bow my head and cringe beneath the weight of being watched, glancing instinctually over both shoulders, to see no one.

I begin the task with ease, trying my utmost to keep ideas of imminent death from my mind, starting on the side nearest the kitchen's entrance and working my way right, around the table's foot and to the side opposite of it. The table seats four to a long side, and as I lift the far side's third chair, I suddenly scream. The eyes' master has been found, and he is not their usual source.

Beneath the wooden chair crouches the body of a young elf, in that stage between childhood and adolescence. It immediately springs to its feet, but instead of lunging toward me takes a step backward, smiling almost sheepishly.

"Elrond!" I shriek, paying no heed to the "_Elros_" he mutters in correction. "How long have you been lurking in here, you devilish sneak! What do you think you're doing! I thought your eyes were a shadow come to kill me, a curse upon you! Leave this room, now!"

But he remains still, studying me with a look between terror and wonder. "Creature, did you not hear a word I said to you? Leave me. _Leave me_!" I continue, and suddenly I find a bony arm flying out from my side to strike his face.

The boy's grey eyes fill with tears as a scarlet handprint materializes on his skin. "I am sorry," he whimpers, beginning now to back away. "I only wanted to get a snack, but you and Uncle were arguing when I came in, and I- I hid because I was curiou-"

Had the approach of footsteps not cut off his explanation, be sure that Elros still would not have finished the word; however, we both turn to face the dining room's entrance on my left as Makalaurë enters. He sighs and, apparently seeing my livid expression, makes his way in silence to Elros' side and slips an arm around his foster-son's shoulders. "He is only a child, Rányë," says my brother-in-law. "Why did you strike him?"

My chest heaves, and my breath comes in rapid spurts as I regain in it. I shriek my answer to Makalaurë. "That _demon _has been lurking in here, watching me! Watching me! He spied on Maitimo and I while we had a debate and he has been in here ever since, waiting for an opportunity to-"

"To what?" queries Makalaurë gently, using the condescending tone he no longer even deems age-appropriate for his "children" to be addressed in.

I take a breath, deep and calming, cringing as I look at my feet. "To strike," I admit, quickly appending, "but it was not him that would have done so."

"Rányë," replies Makalaurë, "I have the frightening notion that neither of us knows of what you speak. Surely you did not suspect this child of plans to murder you?"

"Not him, not him," I murmur, convulsively pinching the skin of my hands. "But I did not know who was watching me- and I was afraid."

"So you shouted at him and struck him when you found him?" Makalaurë now asks. I raise my head to see him looking down at me, an expression almost of hurt upon his visage. I make to nod, but the question was apparently rhetorical. "That seems hardly fair to one who did nothing but sit quietly and observe you."

"Would you rather I had taught him to condone spying and eavesdropping, then?" I snap. "A reprimand seems only just when a child is caught up to mischief, intruding on the business of his betters. Terrifying me."

"But justice demands also that the punishment fit the crime," Makalaurë points out, hugging the boy closer to his body. "I am sure he now will always make his presence known to you, though you could have made the point in a much kinder fashion. Have you thought only of the fear he invoked in you? It is always frightening to be the object of a mad- _anyone's _wrath."

_Mad? _I ignore the insult. "He only deserved it after the terror he gave me," I reply obstinately, but Makalaurë seems to pay me no heed.

He turns instead to Elros. The boy passes his gaze up and down my now-trembling frame, raising his eyebrows in apparent puzzlement at my behaviour. _A curse upon him. _Was he truly frightened of me? But that is impossible. I am incapable of frightening even a babe I have raised my sword to kill, much less- unarmed, even- a child of Elros' age and stature. It was only my hand, only words. (By now he ought to know that those can only hurt him for so long.)

Makalaurë's gaze toward him is pointed, clearly attempting to communicate a message I wish I could intercept. It is about me, I am sure. _What is he telling that child? _But aloud, he says only, strangely, "I am sure your aunt will feel much better to know her rebuke was not in vain. What have you learned today, Elros?"

"That Aunt Rányë is afraid of me."

A curse upon him.


	20. That You Feel Is Strange

**As always, a million thank-yous to Sauron Gorthaur for beta'ing!**

**Also, this update is my last post before a six-week hiatus from FFn.**

That You Feel Is Strange

_"The water and the wind will wear the wood down, until only water and wind remain."_

-Lisa Mantchev, _Perchance to Dream_

It is some days now. Days since. The fungus between his fingers is growing. It's strange and pale and lumpy like aging cauliflower, and it's creeping down over his knuckles. Some days since I saw it.

"You should clean that, El," I advise, sneering at the boy across the glasses of water on the table. He frowns. (I think it's 'Ros.) "It's disgusting."

His brother leans toward him, murmurs-but I can hear him, "Maglor said it would be this way. We just have to... ignore it and keep watch."

"Hasn't it been getting worse - " The reply is louder until it's interrupted.

"Quiet; the guards should arrive at any moment. It's a relief Maglor and Maedhros were worried to leave us alone with..." He trails off, soon to finish: "Hopefully she'll keep calm until they come."

I'm very calm, always calm; relaxed like an open boot with its laces flopping. "Don't worry. The strings are untied." The twins nod silently, simultaneously, without meeting my eyes.

Then it occurs to me, and I glance frantically around the high-ceilinged living room, searching as my heartrate climbs arrthymatically. The boys' eyes have wandered (looked away uncomfortably), and I pound a fist on the table for their attention. The glasses' contents slosh. "Where are Maitimo and Makalaurë?" The demand startles the boys, I think.

"You know exactly where they are," blusters one of them, annoyed? "I watched them tell you before they left." _(Liar.) _"Why do you have to be so-" His brother cuts him off with a jostled elbow.

"They've ridden out on a reconnaissance operation of sorts," he says with a patronizing little smile I'd like to peel off his face, "gathering information on the supposed Vala-" His brother elbows him in turn, and he starts the word again: "...valor of...the Edain against Morgoth."

"Oh." I furrow my brain, no, brow. "What were you going to say at first?"

"Valor of the Edain against Morgoth," he recites. "We just... have a joke between us. Don't we?" His brother nods emphatically, and I stare at them, processing.

"Very well, then," I answer at last, moving my gaze down toward his infected hand with the fungal bumps and bubbles. At once I can smell it, pungent and overripe. I daintily pinch my nose but say nothing; I at least have some manners.

We sit like this for some minutes: I holding my nose while the boys look enigmatically at each other and pretend not to smell anything. The one on my left whispers something to the one on my right, and they snicker quietly, I don't care what about. I stare blankly across the table at them until I hear the door behind me squeal open and booted feet click into the room. Two soldiers enter, fully armored but bare-headed.

_"Such a shame," _remarks a voice, "_I like their helmets. The plumes on them are__favorably florid."_

_"Favorably florid!" _cries another delightedly. I grin.

_"Opulently orange," _puts in another immediately.

_"They aren't orange."_

_"Yes, they are."_

_"No, they aren't; they're glamorously golden."_

I laugh, triumphantly toss in, "Extravagantly emerald!"

_"Admirably azure."_

_"Illustriously indigo."_

"Luxuriously lavender!" Giggling, I applaud our cleverness, then glance at the twins' quiet, emotionless faces. One of the soldiers has moved to stand behind them and across from me, arms folded. The other loiters behind my chair.

_"Why haven't you offered them a seat?" _enjoins a matronly voice.

"I don't know."

_"Fancily fuschia.."_

"Oh, sit down!" I exclaim, contorting my lips into a dry smile and gesturing toward the guards and some empty chairs. "How fresh you all smell." They answer me nothing and glare like rocks.

My hands are splayed across the tabletop, twitching as if attached to puppet strings. "What a show," I muse. And a voice echoes me, then echoes itself, then echoes again and again: _"What a show, what-a-show, what a show, whatashow, what-"_

I force my fingers into my ears and shake my head in spasms. "Quiet," I hiss, "quiet, quiet, _**quiet**_!"

One guard is behind me, and his shadow falls across the table under the yellow lamplight. Mesmerizes. I take a finger and gingerly trace the black outline. It's so quiet in here when I'm foc-

And at once it occurs to me. My pulse quickens, and my breath becomes short; I glance around the room, panicking, as a lead weight lands in the pit of my stomach.

"Where-" I stammer, voice scarcely audible over the blood pounding in my ears-"where are Maitimo and Makalaurë?" I lift a clammy hand to my mouth and hold it there, moving my lips to brush them toothlessly against the skin.

"We've only just told you!" The _peredhel_ on the left nearly shouts the lie. My only response is to slowly shake my head, feeling the unspoken doom descending on me like a vulture.

His brother, though, sighs quietly, then dispassionately pronounces: "They've ridden out on a reconnaissance operation of sorts, gathering information on the supposed valor of the Edain against Morgoth."

"Oh." The response is better than it could be. "Thank you." But it comes from a mere child. I lift my eyes to the soldier behind the twins, then twist in my chair to see the face of the guard behind me. "Can you two corroborate this?" I whisper.

"We can," booms the man behind me into my ear. He says nothing more, and his eyes bore into me like a pair of icicles. I feel two cold little puncture wounds in my back and wince.

"Please stop," I mutter. "Please, please, please stop." He doesn't; the punctures ache and burn. Whimpering, I place a hand over their spot on my upper back, straddling the vertebrae between my shoulders. I lay my head on the tabletop inside my other arm.

_"Stop him, then! If the man is stabbing you, get up and _stop him."

"I can't. He'll kill me," I mumble and grumble into the wood. Hm. "Mumble, grumble, stumble, fumble." The words taste so funny in my mouth. But I hurt too much to laugh, and so I whine again from pain.

_"Look, friends: Arda's first canine poet. She whimpers like a welp and spouts rhymes."_

_"Charming."_

_"Stupid."_

"Quiet!" My back hurts terribly. I look up from the tabletop and rest my chin on my forearm, pointing up to indicate addressing the guard behind me. "Is it bleeding yet?" I ask him. No reply.

_"Keep on, keep trying." _

"Thank you." That to the voice, then I address the guard again: "I asked, is it bleeding?" Nothing. I painfully sit up as straight as I can while still clutching the wounds and turn gradually toward him. "You, you behind me, could you tell me if my back is bleeding where you stabbed me?" He stares straight ahead, jaw and gaze sharp and set. Why will he not answer me? It's maddening.

_"Go on, go on. You can scarcely give up now."_

_"Watch her; watch her, everyone; come!" _ This they all repeat until it dissolves into a murmuring on the margin of my consciousness. They're all watching me, and I rise to face the silent guard.

"Please - " I tap him on the wrist with my free hand, then lower my voice to a harsh whisper. " - please, is it bleeding from your ice?" I half twist around to show him but stop when he makes no reply. Insufferable man.

_"Maddening," _adds a voice.

_"Crass and boorish."_

_"Immature." "Chauvinistic." "Barbarian."_

_"Intolerant-intolerable-foolish-ignoble-foul-stupid-craven-despicable-unconscionable-antagonistic-"_

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!" I screech the word, fury combusting on the inside. "They're right about _everything_, you discourteous rat!" What a horrible, horrible, horrible- I take my hand off my back and grab him by the shoulders and endeavor to shake him. "TELL ME! Is my back BLEEDING or NOT?"

The room is silent, and the guard is eerily calm. He methodically lifts my hands off of him, as if brushing away an ugly but innocuous spider. He steers me back down toward my chair, then speaks at last.

"My orders," he says in a voice like cotton in your throat, "are not to converse with you. Please do not attempt to engage me. Thank you."

My eyes are open wide; my heart is thudding in its cavity; my breath arrives in gasps; my hands quiver from rage. And I am shocked silent.

_"What orders, what orders?"_

_"To kill her, of course."_

_"She caught the stabbing too soon for them."_

"Y-your back is all right." It's one of the twins. How lovely. "Why don't we all just have something to eat?"

_"If they can't stab her, then they're certain to poison her."_

_"_Yes, they are..." I muse, an icy maelström settling in my stomach. I sit up straighter; this means I'm resolute. The boys get up (the feet of their chairs squeak horribly on the floor), then they head for the kitchen, abandoning me to the two soldiers.

_"Quick, kill them before they can kill you."_

"With what?" I demand.

_"Your hands, the butterknife, a shard of glass, their own weapons: think, think, think. And strike first."_

"All-" I stammer, "all right, I'll try..." But it's immediately too late: the twins have reentered, each bearing two bowls of something chunky and brown. A little black cloud hangs over each dish; scarlet halos at once rest above all four males, like death misting the air.

"Will you two have something with us?" offers one El' or the other to the guards, indicating one of the dishes. "I can bring another in if you'd care for it."

"No, thank you," says the soldier behind me. "I plan to eat with my daughter after my watch here runs out."

_"See, he won't eat the poison."_

"I'll take this bowl and his then," blurts the other guard. "It smells too good to refuse."

"Liar!" The word trips out of my mouth before I can stop it. On closer inspection, the food can't possibly be poisoned: it's too horrible.

_"You poison a beautiful cake, try to entice your victim; if you want her to consume it, it ought to look appealing, not like- like- something worse."_

Oh. "It isn't poison," I assert. (It always feels better to say things out loud.) "It's something worse." Invisible hands suddenly etch eyes and noses and grins into the four red and the four black clouds. I stare at them, unblinking, and they remain. My hands are limp on the table, and I sit like this for a while, still as a corpse.

"Aunt Rániel?" One of the children disrupts the thoughts that just aren't there. "What is it?"

Wordlessly, I point to the hazy red aura around his head, now contorting, twisting itself into knots and new leering faces in the corners of my eyes. He sighs.

"Aren't you going to have some stew?"

"You're disgusting," I answer simply, then shake my head vigorously '_no_.'

"Rányë... Aunt Rániel... Maedhros said to eat." He shoves the bowl of vomit at me. I saw him. I saw him in the kitchen, retching into the dish. It smells like venison, and the odour tickles my nostrils and rushes down into my stomach and turns the organ upside down until my insides feel bloated and far too light.

I shake my head, dig my dull fingernails into my temples, feel them make ugly little indentures like smiles in the burgundy scars. "Too-" I stammer, and my tongue lolls like a dead, fat fish washed up on the sand. I feel the grits and taste the briny oil coming out the defunct gills. Something splashes in my ears and doesn't stop.

I work my jaw for several seconds, then open my mouth and grab the fish by its sandpaper tail and pull. The muscles anchoring my tongue to the bottom of my mouth stretch and complain. My tongue.

"Lady!" reprimands the guard behind me, and I can see his shadow move toward me.

_My tongue, my tongue. _I release the muscle. "Get... the fish out." I slur the reply and place my head in my hands, clawing absently at my scalp. My elbows are on the table when it begins to shake.

Vibrations rush up through the legs of the table from the trembling foundations of the fortress, and I shriek, throwing my arms off the wood and wildly up.

"Elbereth Gilthoniel!" swears one of the guards.

"Earthquake!" shouts the other helpfully. The twins are white-faced, hard-jawed. The glasses of water shiver, then rock, then fall, spilling their contents across the tabletop, then rolling off and down until they shatter on the floor, which is still buzzing under my feet. The water starts soaking into the wood. The ground keeps throbbing, and my teeth chatter. I clench my jaw, grab my head, and press it to my legs.

"_The house is falling down on you,_" observes a placid baritone. I'm too rigid to answer it aloud. The citadel quivers for several minutes longer, before the tremors slowly space themselves out and at last cease altogether. I sit back up slowly, vertebrae popping until I'm vertical again.

"It must be the turmoil in the North," says one of the guards, slightly breathless. _What turmoil? _"The first time the Valar-" _Valar? _"-made war on Morgoth, the Quendi felt the tremors even at Cuiviénen. I suppose-" He inhales, and I start. "-they are a sign for his downfall."

"So," poses one of the boys (and I can see his voice stretched out between him and the man like a taut white thread), "defeating him now will require as much destruction as long ago?" _What is he talking about?_

"At least as much-" begins the other soldier, but I interrupt him.

"They've come? They've come, and I didn't know?" My quivering voice grows shriller. "I knew about the Silmaril, but this I didn't; no one told me. Maitimo, he always tries to shove a rag in my ears... And down my throat... Like the Valar. Back for us. The Jewels. And devour everything." _Devour. _"I'm so hungry. Like-" And an ugly green hand tears the thought off my tongue. I glance around the room, and my stomach drops while my heart climbs into my throat.

"Where-" I shout, leaping out of the chair and whirling toward the guard behind me. "-where are Maitimo and Makalaurë? Tell me!" I lean toward him and jab a finger at his face. "Now!" _They aren't here. They aren't. And the earthquake... _The man takes a step backward, and his voice stays level.

"They've embarked on a reconnaissance operation of sorts to Ossiriand, and plan to return in a month," he tells me.

_"Obviously they're going to fight the Valar, and didn't see fit to tell you."_

_"Is Morgoth in Ossiriand?"_

_"Every green devil."_

_"And no one tells you anything."_

_"There's a reason for that."_

_"A very good one."_

_"Good."_

"Far from good, any of it!" I argue, striking the table with my fist. "A month sings a working forest, and everyone sets my boots so crooked."

"At any rate, that's the way things are going to be," interposes El-something from near my feet. I revolve to see both boys crouched on the ground, painstakingly plucking the largest pieces of glass off the floor. "Now that you know about the Valar, you might as well know that they were going to Ossiriand in hopes of gathering news from the Laiquendi about the war." He's all but poured a gallon of water in my ears: too much to absorb. I sink nervelessly back into my chair, scavenging for my wits.

"Why?" I manage.

"Why gather news about-"

I cut him short. "Why not tell me?"

"We did tell you," grumbles one of them, "several times - that they were out doing reconnaissance, and they told you, as well, before they left."

"No, you didn't, and neither did they, you little liar," I spit at him. "And the Valar? I suppose you fed me morsels of power there, too?" This time I sneer.

Silence for a moment, and the boys glance at one another, then back and forth at the guards. "'Morsels of power'...?"

"About the Powers;" I answer, exhaling my annoyance, "don't be an idiot."

"Oh, it isn't him we're worried about..." says the other twin quietly, smirking.

I laugh and tease the soldiers: "Well, these guards certainly don't appear all that clever." No one else laughs, and no one else speaks. Elrond and Elros finish collecting the glass without a word (the hand fungus doesn't seem to impede the one of them), then bring in the broom and dustpan to do away with the particles too fine for picking up.

Time passes, and I flip the Valar over and over in my brain, a voice repeating at intervals like a bell: _"They've come for you." _I pull my legs up into the chair toward my chest and rest my head between my parted knees. I feel nauseated. After a while longer, I hear a door open and shut wildly in the room next door. The sudden noise must be permission to speak.

"I'm going upstairs to my bedroom, thank you," I announce before moving at all. I hear more doors slam open and shut, punctuating the words. I slowly pull my head out from between my knees in time to hear a few hurried inhales and a breathless voice.

"We encountered a few Laiquendian scouts just before the earthquake," says Maitimo, whom I've looked up to see. No greeting, no chatter, just urgency. He rarely says anything that isn't necessary anymore. "They were themselves en route to Ereb, bearing a message from the Valar-" _No secrets now, I see._ "- that all of Beleriand is to begin moving over Ered Luin." He inhales again. "After the earthquake, we saw why."

Makalaurë stands next to him, having just finished embracing the boys. "Did it inflict much damage here?" His voice is weary but genuinely concerned. He glances over the five of us.

"No, my lord," reports the soldier behind me. "Just a few broken glasses on this side, and I doubt it was much worse in the other wings. My daughter would have come to find me over here if it were."

"We're much relieved to hear that." Makalaurë offers a mild but authentic smile. "We turned the horses around as soon as the tremors stopped."

"And we will depart here by noon tomorrow," Maitimo rushes to conclude, next addressing the soldiers: "The rest of the company who rode with us is disseminating the instructions to prepare to leave to the rest of the people. You both are dismissed. I appreciate your efforts here today."

"Yes, my lord," they answer as one. Then they immediately leave the room.

"Elrond, Elros," Maitimo continues, "I thank the two of you, as well."

"For what?" I frown and squint up at him.

"For keeping you company, Rányë," he answers curtly, then slowly curls his lips into an unpleasant smile. "Come, it's barely sunset, and we have much to put together." I scramble out of my seat to follow him out of the dining room and toward the stairs.

_"Ask him, ask him, ask him!" _prod several voices at once. _"Are the Valar here? How near are they? And the Silmarils? And why? And-"_

"Why did you force me deaf about their spinning Silmarils on the shady margin?"

"I need you to do something incredibly important for me, Rányë," he answers me as we pass through the corridor leading toward our bedroom.

"Yes?"

"Let me pack the weapons," he says. "I believe both of us will feel better that way."

"Why?" I probe, and we enter the bedroom. The orange rays of sundown pour in through the white curtains, playing on the stone floor and among the contours of the sheets of the unmade bed. We don't have much in here.

"Just that reason," he calmly responds. "The whole world is crumbling under our feet; that's enough trouble on its own."


End file.
